


Hydra-Headed

by Glishara



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-15
Updated: 2010-08-15
Packaged: 2017-10-11 02:51:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 23,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/107543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glishara/pseuds/Glishara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An Auditorial investigation gone wrong leaves one of Miles's fellow Auditors dead in the field.  The wrath of Barrayar is unleashed on the sleepy town of Vorgarin's Landing.  How will Miles unwind the situation and get to the heart of the assassination?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was 3 AM when the comconsole chimed. Miles woke immediately, but it took him an instant to realize why. Since the twins were born, calls were screened downstairs before they were passed on up to him by the staff. Only ImpSec and the Emperor himself had direct access at all hours. His stomach plunged.

Beside him, Ekaterin stirred. "Mmm?" she said muzzily.

"Stay in bed," he told her, sliding to the floor and pulling on a robe. She did as he suggested, but sat up, pulling the sheet up around her. Her hair was sleep-mussed, her eyes foggy with fatigue. Miles took a seat at the comconsole, took a breath to center himself, and keyed it on.

Gregor's face materialized, tense and gray and very, very grim. He did not waste time with preliminaries. "Vorhovis was just killed by a sniper in Vorgarin's Landing. Pack a bag and be at the Residence in thirty minutes."

A hole opened in the pit of Miles's stomach, but he didn't waste time with questions. "Yes, sire," he said. The image winked out.

Miles wasted thirty seconds of that half hour staring at the blank space from which Gregor had just spoken to him. Then he keyed the console on again. Pym's face appeared almost instantly. "My lord?" he said.

"Wake Roic," Miles instructed, "and tell him to get a bag together and meet me in the portico in ten minutes ready to travel. Call for a car, and get someone up here to get a bag together. I need to be at the Imperial Residence in --" His eyes flicked to the clock in the corner of the console, "twenty-nine minutes. I need to handle some personal matters."

"Yes, my lord." Pym's expression was tense, but his voice was perfectly level. Miles killed the connection and turned in his chair. Ekaterin, sitting on the edge of the bed, no longer looked at all tired. Her eyes were wide. They met Miles's, and he instantly felt the tension drop several notches.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I don't know how long this will take, but I'm going to be in it for the duration. I'll go say goodbye to the twins. Can you stay and help them get my bags together?"

"Of course," she replied. "And of course you do. Will you be able to call home?"

"Every few days, at least," Miles said. "I'll try to make it every day, to talk to Aral and Helen. I can't make any promises."

"I know." She reached out her hands, and he caught them in his own, placing a kiss on each of them. "You'll miss the birthdays?"

"Probably," he admitted. "Do something fun with them, and I'll set aside a few days when this is all over."

She nodded silently, then tugged on his hand. He let himself be drawn a step closer, and she leaned in to touch her mouth to his. "Be careful, Miles," she said.

"I will." But that was the only allusion to the danger they would let themselves make, and he released her hands, sketched a brief bow, and turned to leave the room. On his way down the hall, he passed the servant coming to handle his packing.

Aral and Helen's room was two doors down from his. He keyed it open with a touch, stepping into the soft glow of their night lamps. The new beds, bought for their second birthdays, were empty against the nursery wall. Aral and Helen lay tangled together in their crib, Helen's thumb in her mouth, fast asleep.

For several seconds, Miles just looked down at them, his heart too full for action or breath. He felt the tears pricking at the backs of his eyes, and wasn't sure where they came from. He needed to come in here more, he thought, to watch these secret sleepy moments. There were not infinite opportunities, though it sometimes seemed the days could go on forever. Seize the moment, he told himself silently. This moment, alas, was not his to seize.

He reached through the side of the crib to touch Helen's tangle of auburn hair. "Helen," he murmured to her. "Helen, lovie, wake up." She stirred under his touch, blinked, and let out a quiet sound that was almost a whimper. "Helen," he repeated, and she turned toward his voice, her sleepy disorientation turning to a groggy recognition.

"Da?" she said. Her motion inevitably woke Aral, as well, who clawed his way out of sleep faster and more violently, popping upright in the crib. "Hi!" he said brightly, pushing to stand up by the crib rail. "Play jump!" he demanded.

"It's not morning yet," Miles told them, his voice low and soothing. "I have to go work. I want to say goodbye before I go."

"Jump!" Aral said again. "Jump jump jump!"

Miles leaned down to lift Helen, almost too heavy for him, and rested his cheek against Aral's dark head. "We don't have time to play jump right now," he said. "I'm sorry. I love you both very much."

Helen's fingers, tangling around his neck, felt sticky and warm. Aral's head was soft and smelled of the shampoo Ekaterin bought for them. "Story, da?" Helen asked.

"Jump!" Aral put in.

Miles checked his chrono. "One jump," he relented. "Then a short story. Then back to bed."

"Two jumps!" Aral countered.

"Two jumps," Miles agreed.

"Three jumps!"

"Two jumps." Miles's voice was firm.

Aral scrunched up his face. Miles put Helen down on the floor, then reached out to his son, who grabbed his arms gleefully. A heft, a swing, and Aral was standing on the chair. "One," Miles said, "two... three...."

"JUMP!" Aral shrieked as Miles swung him up, reflecting guiltily that Ekaterin would probably not approve of this as a 3 AM goodbye ritual. Back down onto the chair Aral went, as Helen watched with her thumb back in her mouth.

"One, two, three..." And up went Aral again, laughing with hysterical glee.

The story was too short, as Miles sat with his children on his knees, cuddled in against his shoulders. This little slice of happiness could not last forever, no matter how much he wanted it to. Four minutes, five, and then he had to place kisses on two small foreheads and swing them back into their crib, where they blinked uncomprehendingly up at his affectionate goodbyes. They did not cry when he left, though he suspected tears would come soon after, as they sat in confused wakefulness after their nighttime interruption.

He stopped back in the room to do a survey and decide whether to grab any last items. "Your bags are downstairs already," she told him. She was up and dressed, ready for a day that was starting much too early.

"I'm sorry about this," he told her.

"I know," she replied. "It's nothing either of us would change if we could, Miles. Don't apologize for it." Her words were quiet and calm. He drew that calm into him, like a warming blanket. Seconds ticked away while they stood there. "I'll tell everyone in the morning," she said. "Go."

He went. Roic was waiting in the portico as ordered, looking more alert than he doubtless felt. He came to attention as Miles emerged, greeting him with a crisp, "M'lord." Pym himself was driving, already in the cab and ready to go.

Miles nodded a response and moved to the groundcar, whose door Roic opened smoothly for him. He climbed inside and looked out the far window as Roic shut the door between him and his home.

#

It wasn't until they were out of the driveway and past Ekaterin's garden that Miles began to really process the news. Vorhovis was dead. He thought of the lean, analytical Auditor, whose style he had sought to emulate early in his career, and could not quite emotionally wrench the man out of his universe. He suspected the upcoming briefing would have raw data enough to underscore the man's death.

Vorhovis had been married. His wife – his widow – probably didn't have the news yet. He imagined Ekaterin, in that moment, sleeping peacefully while the Empire's power moved in the night to avenge his own death. He did not think, in the end, she would thank the Empire for those extra hours of uninterrupted sleep. No doubt Madam Vorhovis would be equally unappreciative. At least their children were grown and out of the home, old enough to give comfort as well as need it.

He didn't know much about Vorhovis's case. It was a financial investigation, he knew, into an Empire-run mining base on South Continent. Some numbers not lining up somewhere. A financial investigation given the run-around. They hadn't discussed it much as a group, because the matter seemed relatively simple, as these investigations went.

Had anyone suspected more than pure financial crime? The murder of Lord Auditor Vorhovis certainly suggested a deeper plot than was visible on the surface, but Miles couldn't begin to guess what it might be. Devoid of any raw data at all, his mind chewed over the possibilities, unknowable and innumerable, as the groundcar made its stately way through the dark streets of Vorbarr Sultana.

It was not a long drive to the Imperial Residence when there was no traffic to interfere. They made the thirty-minute deadline with six minutes to spare, and Miles was greeted at the gate by a Vorbarra armsman. "They're meeting in the Emperor's office, my lord Auditor," the man said.

Miles nodded an acknowledgment before turning to Roic. "Unload the bags and stay here with them," he said. "We'll either be only a few minutes or several hours, depending on whether we're getting the briefing here or on the way. If I'm gone more than half an hour, have someone bring you something to eat."

"Yes, m'lord," Roic answered.

Miles turned to glance in the cab of the groundcar, where Pym sat with deceptive stillness. "Bring the car home," he instructed. "You're seconded to Ekaterin and the children until I get home. Take care of them for me."

"Of course, m'lord," Pym answered. "Good luck."

"Thank you." Miles worked his jaw for a moment, trying to think if there was anything he'd forgotten. Finally, he shook his head and turned to the waiting Vorbarra armsman. At his quick nod, the man led the way into the night-quiet building.


	2. Chapter 2

Vann Vorgustafson was already in the office with Gregor, looking more like a man up late than a man just rousted from bed. His trousers and blindingly pink flannel shirt were more rumpled than usual, and his dark eyes were bloodshot, with dark bags under them. He didn't glance up when Miles came in.

Gregor was studying a comconsole screen. He did glance up, but just to say, "Have a seat, Miles. Lord Auditor Vorthys is just landing now. He'll be in here in two minutes."

Miles sat, rubbing his face with one hand as if to rub life back into it. His skin felt rubbery and numb, like a strangers. It was getting harder to wake up, and the news, he supposed, had been more disorienting that he'd realized. For distraction, he offered Vorgustafson a nod. "Vann," he greeted.

Vorgustafson returned the nod. "Miles," he said. "Keep your voice down please. My head is spinning."

Miles grimaced in sympathy. "Late night?"

"Oh, yes," Vorgustafson sighed.

The two men sat in tense silence for a minute while Gregor worked on the comconsole. _Hell,_ Miles realized abruptly. _I should probably use my seizure stimulator on the way down there. It will probably be the most predictable down time I'll have in the next week or two._ The idea was not appealing.

When the door opened again, allowing Vorthys to enter, Gregor looked up from his work. "Professor," he said. "Have a seat."

"Sire," Vorthys returned, his geniality driven away by the moment. He managed a brief smile for each of his fellow Auditors, however, and a brief word of greeting, "Good morning, Miles. Vann."

"Good morning, Professor," Miles replied. Vorgustafson just grunted. Vorthys settled himself in a chair, glancing back at the door.

Gregor caught the glance. "We're not expecting anyone else," he said. "Vorlaisner is four hours away, and rather than have him meet us here, I'm sending him straight on to the site. Vorkalloner is looking into the mess with the mutiny on the Sovereignty; I need him there."

Heads nodded, but no one spoke. All eyes were on Gregor now.

"Around an hour ago," the Emperor began, "Lord Auditor Vorhovis was shot and killed by a sniper while returning to his hotel from dinner. He was in the process of investigating financial inconsistencies in the operating reports of the Teklis Mining Company just outside of Vorgarin's Landing, in Vortugalov's District. The case seemed straightforward on the surface, but two consecutive investigation teams were handled too adroitly to learn anything, so I sent in Lord Vorhovis.

"He reported to me daily." Surely Miles was just imagining that Gregor's eyes lingered on him for a minute at this? "He had not yet found anything concrete, but he had a few leads he was following. I had confidence the mess would be unraveled within a week or so. There was nothing that hinted this was more than peculation and grift. Until today."

The three Imperial Auditors sat quietly, contemplating this news, their own fatigue, and, in Vorgustafson's case, probably the next time he could take some painkillers. Vorthys was the first to speak. "What has been done already, by the municipal guard or ImpSec on site?"

"They've sealed the area and taken everyone they could find into custody. There are over a hundred and fifty people currently under guard awaiting interrogation. ImpSec is sending a team down there."

Miles winced. "Does that number include the employees of the mining operation? If not, someone should make sure they're all monitored. If _anyone_ disappears out from under us in this investigation, I'm going to be very unhappy."

"They're shut down all public transportation into and out of the city and instituted a curfew which will keep everyone indoors until you can be on site," Gregor answered, skimming his screen. "Ah. No, Miles, they have not taken all the mining company personnel into custody."

"Do you think they should, yet?" Vorgustafson asked. "Where would they put them all? How many people are we talking about?"

"Over two hundred," Gregor answered after a moment.

Miles grimaced. "What kind of manpower do we have on the ground currently?"

"Thirty guards on patrol, borrowed from the Imperial Service, a five-man ImpSec team, and the local municipal guard, which has a 16-man complement."

"Sixteen?" Miles grimaced. "I think we should hold off on any additional arrests, then. We'll scramble a team from HQ, and have them get some temporary holding facilities put together as their first priority. I think we'll be building our own HQ."

"At this point, gentlemen," Gregor said, "the financial investigation is incidental. I want an answer eventually, but in the short-term it does affect our course. Our Imperial Auditor was assassinated on an active case, and I request and require that the traitors be found, tried, and executed. I want it done quickly, and I want it done in full view of the public. This cannot be allowed to stand."

His words had a type of gravity in the quiet room, and hung there like a physical force. "Understood, sire," Vorthys said first. Miles and Vorgustafson echoed him.

"In light of the dramatic nature of this event, and the need for a visible force," Gregor continued, "I am sending General Vorparadijs to operate in parallel with you."

Vorgustafson winced. Miles and Vorthys did not, quite.

"He will doubtless do a very good job of keeping the media and local politicians away from you gentlemen while you conduct your business," Gregor went on. "And I will make it clear to him that his work will be only in the public arena on this case."

There was nothing to be said to that, unfortunately. Vorparadijs, good god.

"Tell me your thoughts, gentlemen."

Imperial Auditors were, as a rule, cautious men. All three of them sat for a minute, turning the issue over in their heads. Vorgustafson was the first to speak. "The financial end of this may be a low priority in itself, but my inclination is to view it as a major thread to tug. Whatever Vorhovis was doing, it seems likely he stirred up something that left his murderer scared into panic. If we retrace the steps of his investigation, we may find the murderer hidden there."

Vorthys nodded. "I had reached the same conclusion," he said. "We should read over his reports on the way down there, and see what we can glean from his information. Once we're on-site, I want to look over his raw data and try to build up a picture of his case. I suspect he approached it from a different angle than I would have done, so I will need to see his angle of view."

"The other approach, of course," Miles said, "is to come at it from the end. Rather than tracing his steps forward to the moment of the assassination, we backtrack from the bullet to find the person that fired it. I think I want to see the crime scene as soon as we arrive, and someone will need to review all of the fast-penta interrogations."

"Did you want to sit in on them?" Vorthys asked dubiously.

"Oh, god, no," Miles said. "I could use up my entire time there just doing that. We'll want a few teams of skilled interrogators to conduct the interviews, but there are only a few minutes of real action in each session. I want to be moving, talking to the experts, seeing what I can pick apart."

"Imagine that," Vorgustafson muttered. Miles pretended not to hear him.

Gregor nodded. "You can make the rest of your plans in the air on the way down there," he said. A car should be waiting by now."

"I'll want to make a call over to ImpSec before we leave, sire," Miles said.

Gregor nodded and stepped away from his comconsole. Miles slid into the seat and keyed in the number for Allegre's office.

Allegre was, as he had anticipated, at work: with news like this, no one was going to be allowed their sleep. "General Allegre," he greeted without preamble, "I need some specialized teams down in Vorgarin's Landing by morning."

"Yes, my Lord Auditor," Allegre replied, looking weary but unsurprised. "Tell me what you want."

Miles thought for a moment, turning over his actual needs. "I need at least ten guards, two for each Auditor who will be on site and trained in guarding a moving target in hostile territory. I need four teams of fast-penta interrogations, one from the Auxiliary. I need two top financial analysts, and someone to analyze, edit, and condense the interrogation tapes for review. I don't know if I'll be able to personally review all of them immediately, but I want them all analyzed separately from the interrogation teams themselves."

"Understood, my Lord Auditor."

"They'll need additional support down there just in terms of sheer manpower. My preference is to have them be all men with top security clearance. I don't know who you can shake loose from where. We can call on the main body of the service if we need to, but we're going to be bringing a few hundred extra bodies into custody, and we'll need arresting teams and guards who can be trusted as backups to our investigation."

Allegre frowned, tapping a few keys. "I can have a few men there within an hour or two from posts near the site. I can manage at least twenty, probably closer to forty. However, Cecil Base is only an hour from there by groundcar, and they have a complement of just over seven hundred. They can probably muster fifty people to handle crowd control and arrests without any difficulty at all. Would my twenty do with support from their personnel?"

"Um." Miles did a few rapid recalculations. "Yes, in the short term. But I want them phased out and replaced with men with better clearance over the next few days. Tell them to take control of a few buildings down there, on my authority, and begin securing it for prisoner retention. Until we get the interrogations moving, our prisoner count is going to be going up, not down."

"Yes, my Lord Auditor."

"Vorkosigan out." Miles killed the com and rose from the seat. Vorgustafson and Vorthys were waiting politely by the door, and Gregor was watching him from a place by the window.

"Ready?" the Emperor asked. Miles nodded, and Gregor crossed to touch a button on his comconsole. "Piotr?" he said into it. "They're ready."

A moment later, the door to the office slid open, and the armsman nodded politely. "My lords, if you would come with me?" he asked. They trooped out. Miles glanced back once at Gregor, who was staring out the window at the dark night. The door closed behind them, blocking out his view of his Emperor.

Vorthys and Vorgustafson were speaking quietly about something to do with mines, but Miles walked in silence through the corridors, thinking about Vorhovis. It occurred to him for the first time that this case would probably be the first time he was forced to hand down an execution order. There would be no jail time for this assassin, no deferred sentencing. He had killed by design only twice before, both times as Admiral Naismith. Once, his hand had firing the killing shot, it that godforsaken business with the spy in Vegan space. The other had been a killing by proxy with that bastard Pitt on Dagoola IV. This time, the arm of Barrayaran law would move to enact the death he would command. It was an odd feeling, no easier now than it had been when he first rode to Silvy Vale as a boy.

When they were settled in the aircar, Miles spoke, trying with some success not to sound embarrassed, "Gentlemen, if you're going to review Lord Vorhovis's reports on the way, I'll take this opportunity to use my seizure stimulator, so that I don't need to use it in the middle of this mess. The six-hour flight should give me time to recover."

"Of course, Miles," Vorthys said genially. Vorgustafson looked uncomfortable, turning away to look out the window with a murmur that could be read as assent. Vorgustafson was always awkward when reminded of Miles's less visible abnormalities.

_Just get it over with._ He smiled a bit nervously, feeling like an idiot, and unpacked the little device from his kit. Roic was in the cab of the aircar along with the driver, so Miles would have to do without his typical spotter. He inhaled, exhaled, slipped in his mouthguard, and placed the control lead to his temple.

He pressed the button. The world spat gray static and went dark.


	3. Chapter 3

Vorthys woke Miles with a touch on his shoulder. Miles swam out of the haze of pain-riddled sleep, blinking back the headache pressing against his eyes. He swallowed the fuzziness in his throat before speaking. "How long have I been out?"

"Nearly six hours," Vorthys replied. "We'll be on the ground in fifteen minutes. I wanted to give you a change to take another of your vile little pain pills before we have to confront the populace." He kept his voice mercifully low, and Miles grimaced a thank you.

Vorgustafson was looking out the window, looking rather more human now. Miles imagined he must look like a grey little troll in contrast with his companions, but there was no help for it now. At least he wouldn't look like a twitching fish on the floor tomorrow. Maybe he'd look extra intimidating. He badly needed a depilatory. They all badly needed depilatories.

He popped two pain pills dry and asked, his voice hoarse, "What is the plan for when we touch down?"

"They've taken three buildings down there, and have them under constant guard," Vorgustafson answered his actual question. "Vorlaisner is already on the ground and settled in what he's calling 'Prisoner Retention'. He wants to handle the interrogations, monitoring, reviewing, seeing what of worth can be pulled from it. I let him know you and he could fight for the privilege; neither of _us_ wants it." He grimaced over at Vorthys.

"We'll take time to get settled in before we get started, Miles," Vorthys assured him. "It is most sensible, I feel, for Vann and I do take one of the remaining buildings for our work on the financial end of things, and you to claim the second as your headquarters for investigating the sniper directly."

Miles nodded. "That… does make sense. I'm going to need a shower before I'm good for much, I think. Ah – where is General Vorparadijs staying?" Not with him, he hoped devoutly.

"I contacted the mayor an hour ago," Vorgustafson answered, "to thank him for his generous willingness to house the general in his own home."

Miles's lips twitched. The painkillers were starting to kick in, and the white starbursts of pain in his head no longer had a nauseating green halo.

"We'll all get showers and some breakfast before we start for the day," Vorthys said. Miles grimaced at the idea of food, but could not deny he needed it.

The amount of work that had been accomplished in six hours was extraordinary. The pre-dawn town now bristled with armed men, patrols and guards ubiquitous. As the aircar sank onto its landing pad, Miles saw the scopes of two anti-aircraft guns. High-energy fencing had been unrolled and activated around several perimeters, with checkpoints at the entrances. Vorthys looked a bit taken aback. Vorgustafson looked impressed. Miles felt at home.

With a little shudder and a faint clang, the aircar touched down. The quiet hum of its engines turned off.

Miles was the last out of the car. Lord Auditor Alistair Vorlaisner waited by the edge of the field, looking tall, wise, somber, and well-rested, damn him. Vorthys took his hand in a warm clasp. "Alistair," he said, his voice low. "I am sorry. I know that you and Josef were close."

Vorlaisner simply nodded and moved on. "The interrogation teams have an ETA of 80 minutes from now," he said. "I want to be on hand to brief them, but we should all speak together first. Have you reviewed Vorhovis's reports?"

"Vann and I have," Vorthys replied. "Miles has offered to approach the problem from the other end, beginning with the crime scene and forensics. I confess I am glad enough to leave that to him." He did not, Miles was glad to see, add, _Miles was asleep the whole way down._ "Shall we take twenty minutes to settle in and meet for breakfast?"

The suggestion met with universal approval, and Miles followed a grim-faced ImpSec corporal to his new base of operations. Roic followed behind, bags in hand.

The house was clearly just that, someone's home, co-opted for the purpose. Miles was vaguely disconcerted by the pictures on the walls in the living room, smiling, gap-toothed children backdropping the trio of uniformed men gathered around the coffee table. They all looked up at Miles's entry, apprehension showing in their expressions. Miles nodded a vague acknowledgement, but they did not relax.

"We've mostly taken over the downstairs, m'lord," the corporal told him. Miles should have asked his name in the beginning, he realized belatedly, but it was too late for the gesture to seem courteous. He'd have Roic suss it out later.

The upstairs room to which the corporal brought him was not large, and the comconsole desk shoehorned into a corner took up most of the space. "There's a room across the hall for your man, m'lord, and we'll have a 24-hour watch on the building, of course. The shower is right through there." At Miles's vague nod, the corporal saluted and almost fled, clearly relieved to have gotten out alive.

Miles scrubbed at his face with one hand and turned to Roic. "I'm going to get a shower and depilate," he told his armsman. "I want you to familiarize yourself with this building and decide if you need anything else to make you comfortable with its security. I'm going to need you to be able to sleep without worrying about me. Anything you need to let you do that, you tell me."

"Yes, m'lord," Roic said. "Shall I unpack your things first, or do you want me to wait until we get back?"

"Wait until we get back. If there are security arrangements that need changing, it may take some time, and I want it all in place before we are ready for bed." Tonight seemed much too far away already, and Miles reminded himself to unpack a stimulant from his luggage before starting out on his day's errands.

"Understood, m'lord."

The shower took five minutes, and left Miles feeling considerably more like a human being. As he combed his hair and waited for the depilatory cream to work, he measured the bags under his eyes. He would look grey and ill, but not weak or slow. Good. And if he did look slow, well, so be it. Perhaps someone would underestimate him.

He was dressed again and downstairs ten minutes after he had arrived at the house. The officers in the living room rose as he came in. "Gentlemen," he greeted them.

"My Lord Auditor," greeted the most senior of them, an ImpSec major. His voice was distinctly tense. "I am Major Jason Papadakis, and this is Captain Jackson Chevalier and Lieutenant Dimitri Vorinnis. Captain Chevalier has come over from Cecil Base in command of a small company."

Miles nodded to each man in turn. Despite his lack of ImpSec eyes, Captain Chevalier seemed very much at home in his intimidating company, more so than either of the other two men. He let his eyes return to the senior ImpSec man. "Major Papadakis, who is the commander of the municipal guard here in Vorgarin's Landing?"

It was not Papadakis who answered, but Chevalier. "His name is Burleigh, my lord, and he's new to the position. Captain Babcock, who held the post for eighteen years, was injured on the job two months ago and retired to live with his son in the city."

"Do you know the man?" Miles asked him.

"Yes, my lord," Chevalier said. "He was a ten-years-man, and served his time on Cecil Base when I was newly posted there. He's a good man, but not quick on his feet. He's… not dealing very well with this."

Miles grimaced. "Well, get in touch with him and let him know I'm going to want a walkthrough of the scene in ninety minutes, after which I'm going to want to speak with him. I want a first responder to walk me through the situation."

"Yes, my lord," Chevalier replied.

"Major," Miles said, turning back to Papadakis, who braced, "after I'm done with him, I'll want to talk to whoever we have for a forensic medical examiner. I expect ImpSec has brought someone in, but I want to speak to whoever initially examined the body on the scene, as well as the ImpSec man."

"Understood, m'lord!" Papadakis nearly barked the words. Miles suppressed a grimace of distaste. He imagined the stress of the moment was driving subtlety out of nearly everyone. Except Chevalier. He glanced again at the man, speculatively.

"Captain Chevalier, you haven't any allergies to fast-penta, yes?" Papadakis started at the words, and Chevalier at least looked taken aback.

"No, my lord," he answered after a few heartbeats.

"Good," Miles said. He turned to examine the pictures on the wall, giving the men some imitation of privacy while he waited for Roic.

Roic didn't look exactly happy as he came into the house from an examination of the perimeter, but he said, "It's as secure as they can get it, m'lord. I can't think of anything else they can do in the next day or two."

Miles nodded. "Then let's go meet the others."

#

The hotel that was being used as a holding facility boasted a small, comfortable restaurant. The staff, of course, was not being allowed on-site, so it was lonely and dark. The four Imperial Auditors sat around a table eating instant groats.

Nothing in Vorhovis's notes hinted at a secret great enough to draw a sniper's fire. Nothing he had done that day had been out of the ordinary for an Auditor on a case. "I agree that the most sensible approach is to try and retrace his steps," Miles said, "but there is always the possibility that the whole case was unrelated. He may have had a history with some local or another, from his ministry days, or even something personal. I want to put ImpSec on looking for those connections and follow up personally."

Vorlaisner grimaced. "It seems very random, given the facts of the case, but I can't say you're wrong."

"Chances are good that one of you gentlemen will find the answer while I'm still poking around," Miles acknowledged. "But if the answer isn't down any of your paths, I will be exploring the back paths."

"And Vorparadijs will be making a nuisance of himself," Vorgustafson put in. He was looking much improved, with the ruddy flush back to his cheeks. "As usual."

"I suspect that's what the Emperor wants, in this case," Vorlaisner said thoughtfully. "A hundred years ago, Vorgarin's Landing would have been a smoking ruin by now, with everyone in range rounded up and shot as a message. No one has assassinated an Auditor since well before Gregor became Emperor. He needs a visible show of force and show of displeasure, to demonstrate that he has not softened. He can't have the position become vulnerable. And General Vorparadijs is, ah…" He trailed off, looking for a polite word.

"Very, very visible," Vorgustafson provided. "And audible, god help us all."

Vorthys twitched a smile at this. "We shall keep him well distracted with targets who are not us," he predicted. "When does he arrive?"

"Just before dinner," Vorlaisner answered. He smiled in spite of himself. "By which time our guests will be chewing holes in the walls. I'll ask him to speak with them."

"Good," said Vorgustafson. "Better them than us. Do we want to meet for dinner tonight?"

"Probably wise," Vorthys said.

"Sure, I'm in," Miles agreed easily.

Vorlaisner rose to his feet. "Until then, gentlemen."

With that, they broke up to attend to their separate needs.


	4. Chapter 4

Captain Burleigh himself was waiting outside the house when Miles walked back up the hill. He was trailed by Roic and an ImpSec bodyguard, both watchful and alert. Eyes peered out from a few houses as they passed, and Roic's hand never left his stunner.

Burleigh was a man in his mid-forties, not at all what Miles had envisioned from the name. He had expected someone… well… burlier. Big and bluff and salt-of-the-earth. Burleigh looked more like a clerk or a schoolteacher than a municipal guard, tall and slender, with manicured hands. When he saw Miles, his eyes widened and he flinched, one hand coming up instinctively as if to perform a warding sign. He managed, barely, to suppress it.

Miles suppressed the automatic bubble of distaste that rose in him at the man's recoil. "Captain Burleigh?" he inquired. The man wore the uniform of the guard, with a captain's insignia on the shoulder, so it was a formality of a question.

"Yes," Burleigh responded after a fractional pause, to get his bearings, Miles suspected.

"Good," Miles said. "I am Lord Vorkosigan, Imperial Auditor. My Imperial Master requests and requires that I investigate the assassination of Lord Auditor Vorhovis in your jurisdiction. I request and require all due assistance from you in my investigation." He pitched his voice to carry, his eyes never wavering from Burleigh. If he couldn't look the part, he could damn well sound it.

Burleigh hesitated again, but reluctantly said, "I understand, my Lord Auditor. I'm at your service."

_You'd damned well better be,_ Miles thought. "Let's talk inside, captain."

At his gesture, Burleigh preceded him into the cozy living room with its bric-a-brac and chintz and military-grade comconsoles and armed men. "We won't stay long," Miles told him. "I'd asked to talk first to someone who was there on the scene."

"Yes, my Lord Auditor," Burleigh replied. "I was there. We got a call around ten – at 9:49 – that Lord Auditor Vorhovis had been shot. I was in the station – I'd been working extra hours since he came – so I got myself over there. I had two men out on a patrol, and called them to meet me there, and left Jeffries to man the desk and call for a med team and Imperial Security in the city. I got there first, and hollered for people to clear the area – they'd been crowding him."

Miles held up a hand to stall him, realizing abruptly that the man would rattle out the whole tale here. He didn't need to hear the story, he needed to _see_ it. "Captain Burleigh, let's walk over to the crime scene before we start. I want to be able to see the scene as you describe it."

Burleigh shrugged in studied indifference, then remembered himself. "Of course, my Lord Auditor."

Miles nodded farewell to the men with guns and the floral couch, and they stepped back out onto the street. "It's over half a mile," Burleigh said, casting him an uncertain look. "We could call for a car."

Miles bristled inwardly, but kept his voice a silken purr: "If you're worried you might get tired, captain, we can of course wait."

Burleigh's shoulders tensed, and he shot Miles a grim, suspicious look. After a moment, he said, gruffly, "No, my Lord Auditor."

The walk was pleasant, with the sun warming the little town and the Black Escarpment just visible through the morning haze to the west. It took a little less than ten minutes for them to reach the police barrier, during which time Miles did not speak. Vorgarin's Landing was awake, now, and he tried to get a feel for the sleepy little town.

It was not a wealthy town, but the people had some pride. The small houses had faded curtains and the masonry of their chimneys was old and starting to crumble, but their yards were well-tended, with pretty flower beds and patches of vegetables, and the windows were mostly clean. He didn't see many groundcars, but those he saw were elderly and very well-tended. On the whole, he liked the town, except for their propensity to kill Imperial Auditors.

There was a team of five men guarding the crime scene. Miles gained entrance with a press of his Auditor's seal to the reluctant compad the sergeant held out for him. Once his identity had been officially recognized, the guards became very helpful. Miles assured them with an airy, "Carry on, men," and led Burleigh inside. Roic followed them, but the ImpSec guard remained outside the dividing line.

The police tape and crime scene shielding blocked off the entire square, a sort of small plaza in front of the Travelogue Hotel. There were benches and neat gardens in poured concrete and brick walkways. There was even a little fountain. It would have been restful, Miles thought, if not for the police markers that speckled the ground, marking the locations of evidence collected. He let his eyes sweep the area, taking it all in. The outline around the patch of ground where Vorhovis had fallen tried to catch his eye, but he refused to let it. He paused when his survey was complete, letting the details settle in.

"All right, captain," he said at last. "Let's – ah." He stopped himself. "Have you been questioned under fast-penta yet?"

"Me, my lord?" Burleigh looked affronted. "No!"

"All right," Miles said. "When we're done here, report to the Weathercrest Hotel and tell them Lord Auditor Vorkosigan wants you questioned immediately. Better to get it over with, hmm?" He smiled genially. Burleigh did not return the smile. "Actually," Miles went on, "contact Captain Chevalier, as well, and tell him I want the same for him. I want to get the law enforcement and guards cleared as quickly as possible."

"Chevalier wasn't even here!" Burleigh said, exasperation creeping into his voice. Miles turned a cold eye on him.

"Captain Burleigh," he said, keeping his voice level, "an Imperial Auditor was assassinated last night in the middle of an active case. This is not a simple crime. This is treason at the highest level. Be grateful we have fest-penta to offer, because if we did not, I would unflinchingly order far more severe and unpleasant methods of extracting the truth. I request and require certainty, and I will indulge every damn whim of suspicion I have in this case. You will cooperate fully, or I will offer charges against you, and those charges will be… serious. Do we have an understanding?"

Burleigh's face was flushed, but he said only, "Yes, my Lord Auditor. I'll pass your message on to Captain Chevalier."

"Good," Miles said. "Now, tell me what you saw when you arrived on the scene."

"The crowd, mostly, my Lord Auditor," said Burleigh, turning back to look at the outline on the ground. "I couldn't see Lord Auditor Vorhovis right away, because there were twenty or so people all pressed around him. People from the hotel were standing in the door. It was the clerk at the hotel that called us. I started hollering for people to back up."

Miles frowned. "You said earlier that you told them to clear the area," he said. "Do you remember your exact words?"

Burleigh turned to blink down at him, his forehead furrowed in thought. "I – huh." He paused, clearly considering the question. "No, my Lord Auditor. I'd usually say something like, 'Here, you people; give him some space!' but I can't say for sure that's what I said this time. They all backed up, though, and no one tried to leave that I saw."

Miles nodded. "Go on," he invited, turning slowly to examine the square as Burleigh spoke.

"Well, they backed up, my lord, and I could see him there. I could tell right away the med team wasn't really needed, because he'd been shot clean through the head. No chance of repairing that, even if we'd had the best team on Barrayar, which we don't. Forensics says the shooter was –"

"Stop," Miles interrupted, one hand lifting. "I don't want any of the forensic conclusions yet. I'll get those when we're done here. Just describe the scene."

Burleigh opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again, measuring Miles with his eyes. "Yes, my lord. I understand." He turned to look around the area again. "There was a damned idiot over near the hotel with a vid recorder trained on the body, so I snapped at him to record the crowd and I'd be taking the camera. I turned the camera over to ImpSec when they got on site, so I don't know if it did any good. It took me six minutes from when I got the call until I got on-site; my men got there two minutes later. I could see we were going to need more than we had, so I yelled for everyone to sit on the ground and not move and sent my men to watch the rear of the hotel for anyone trying to leave, and I called back to headquarters to have them get everyone else back on-duty and to the scene. We bundled everyone into the hotel and held them there until ImpSec showed up and took over. They moved them over to the Weathercrest to clear this scene."

"So –" Miles did a quick calculation. "Assuming that you got the call a minute or two after the shooting, we're looking at a ten-minute window in which the rear exits of the hotel were unguarded?"

"Yes, my lord."

"And the buildings across the plaza? How long was it before they got locked down?"

"Maybe another twenty minutes, my lord," Burleigh answered. "For the last one. We went around in a circle, covering the exits. Three of them are sealed office buildings with keyed entry, so there'll be records of entrances and exits."

Miles frowned. "Which two don't have keyed entry?"

Burleigh pointed them out, and Miles studied the looming buildings. "Do you know how easy roof access is?" he asked.

"No, my lord," Burleigh said. "But the—" He cut himself off. "Sorry, m'lord. What I saw only, right?"

"Right," Miles said. He turned the situation over in his mind. "How many people in total did you pull from the surrounding buildings, as opposed to the hotel?"

"Thirty-eight, m'lord. It was well after normal business hours. Most of those were cleaning crew."

"I understand." Miles felt as if some secret should be etched into the stones here, whispering for him to read it, but he could not read it. There was nothing here, yet. He needed more data.

"All right," he said. "Tell me what the forensic team decided."

"The shooter was up there, m'lord," Burleigh answered, pointing up at the roof of the hotel. "The angle of impact was sharp, and one of the witnesses said he was looking back across the street, which explains the direction. Blood spray supports that finding. It was a single shot with a high-velocity slug, totally kinetic, which means it could have been smuggled past an energy scan. They do energy scans at the Travelogue. No one's found the weapon yet, though they've been looking."

"Do they have any idea how big a weapon we're talking about here?"

"Not until ballistics is done with the slug."

"All right." Miles rubbed his face with his hands. This was going to be a very long day. Already, the headache left over from his seizure was throbbing; he knew from experience that it would only get worse as the day went on without sleep. He had at least another hour before he could take one of his pain pills.

Captain Burleigh was watching him, he realized. "All right, captain," he said. "I'll want copies of the entry and exit logs of the secured building, the crime scene analysis of the forensic team, and the ballistics report when it comes in. I also want to see the footage from that vid recorder, and I want to talk to each of your men before the end of the day. Everyone will need to report for a fast-penta interrogation; try to schedule those with the ImpSec teams so your men can just get in and out, rather than waiting in queues and wasting time."

"I understand, my lord," Burleigh said. "I'll talk with them about it when I report there."

"Good. You can go now, then."

Burleigh nodded, paused as if to say something else, but left without voicing it.

Miles watched him go, then turned to his armsman. "Roic?" he asked. "Tell me what you think."

The tall young man, veteran of the Hassadar Municipal Guard, shook his head. "Bad spot for it, m'lord. Ten to one the shooter got away before they could lock him down. Too many threat vectors, and they didn't have the manpower to block the exits. You can't get anything from a scene like this unless you get lucky and someone saw him. Too much opportunity here. You'll need to look for motive and method. They'll be looking for that weapon pretty hard. Chances are he ditched it somewhere. Little surprised it wasn't left at the scene, to be honest."

"Ah?" Miles lifted an eyebrow, inviting Roic to continue.

"Yes, m'lord. Weapon like that's conspicuous to carry around. If he'd been caught carrying it, that would've been it for him. If he keeps it clean and leaves it at the site, he walks out empty-handed and who blinks at him? It must've taken some nerve to walk coolly past with a target like that hidden under your coat or what have you. Only reason to take it with him is if he thinks it's traceable. When they do find it, that could be a break."

"Hm." Miles thought about this for a minute. "Well, then, let's hope they find it soon." He sighed, looking around the area again. "You're right, though. There aren't any answers here. Let's go talk to the coroner."

After that, he told himself, he would get a strong coffee to clear his head and review the crime scene analysis. He could talk to Burleigh's men after lunch. He hoped some of his fellow auditors were catching at more strings than he had. He wanted ImpSec to find the damn gun. He wanted a nap.

Instead, he asked his ImpSec bodyguard to escort him to the coroner's office. One step at a time.


	5. Chapter 5

"Wake up, boy!"

Miles was jarred out of sleep, his head clanging with – No, wait. That wasn't his head. Someone was banging on his metal headboard. "Grandfather?" he said muzzily, swimming up from sleep.

"No, you idiot! Get up! If a man my age can be up at this godforsaken hour, you can haul yourself out of your damned bed. God knows in my day we didn't lie around lollygagging when there was work for men to do!"

Oh, god. It was General Vorparadijs. General Vorparadijs was in his bedroom. General Vorparadijs was banging on his headboard with a walking stick. Miles carefully, painfully sat up. "I'll – yes, sir," he managed. "I'll be right down. Can you, ah, wait for me in the living room, sir?"

The old general stared disapprovingly at Miles's bare chest with its starburst of old scars. "Hmph," he snorted. "Three minutes, boy. I'll give you three minutes." He braced on his walking stick and stalked out of the room.

Miles buried his head in his hands for a good ten seconds, regaining control of himself. Yesterday afternoon had been a near-total loss. The coroner had nothing beyond the usual to report. Nothing about the crime scene had suggested avenues of investigation. No trace evidence remained on the hotel roof. None of Burleigh's men had seen anything of interest. He had finally gone to sleep late, after watching the interrogation vids of Burleigh and Chevalier… five hours ago.

The door creaked open again, and Roic poked his head in, looking sheepish. "I'm sorry, m'lord," he said. "He just pushed past me."

_You were the one with the stunner,_ Miles did not point out. "Not your fault, armsman," he sighed. "I'm going to go depilate. Find me something to wear."

He made Vorparadijs's three-minute window, barely. "Roic, get me some coffee," he instructed. "General?" he asked.

"Absolutely!" the old man said, thumping his midsection. "Good for the bowels, coffee. Keeps you regular. Not after lunch, though, or I'm passing wind all night. Can't explain it. I need the damned drink today: I've been blocked up something rotten since I got here. At my age, it gets harder and harder to keep everything going properly in the plumbing."

Miles blinked blearily at him, then turned a look of entreaty to Roic, who silently went for the coffee.

"I suspect it's the damned mayor doing it," Vorparadijs continued, far too loudly for the hour of the day. "He's spouting so much shit my own is terrified to come out. Afraid of mixing with bad company, ha! The man's so far up my ass, I should ask him to have a look around in there. He'd probably be grateful to be asked. How a man like that gets the post of mayor, I can't imagine. It's the damned standards going to hell all over. In Ezar's day he'd never have survived his candidacy. He'd have been eaten alive by anyone with a scrap of backbone. And probably made them sick. Faugh!"

Roic emerged with the coffee, and Miles sucked his down like the nectar of life, burning the back of his throat. "Ah – general, not that I'm not happy to see you, of course, but, um, was there something you wanted?"

Vorparadijs snorted. "I sure didn't come here for the stimulating conversation, boy. Vann says the autopsy results showed a high alcohol content in young Josef."

"Young" Josef had been sixty-four when he died, but Miles nodded. "Point oh seven," he said. "Not unreasonable, but he would have been feeling it."

"Well, let me tell you something, boy. I've looked into more cases that you've had rough bowel movements, and I can tell you, if I was drinking enough to feel it, I had a reason. Josef was never a heavy drinker. Maybe it was part of the case, maybe not. But it was something, and I think that's part of your end of things."

Miles took a careful sip of his coffee, considering this. "That… is a very cogent point, General," he said. "Thank you." He turned it around in his head, studying it from all angles. "I'll… think about that."

"Don't strain yourself too hard, boy," Vorparadijs said with a snort. He pushed to his feet, leaning heavily on his cane. "I'm supposed to go on a tour on the mine today. Is this a good use of my time, I ask you? Limping around like a damned fool while men whose main use in the Cetagandan war would have been as mule fodder make up to me. Ha! Mines. I could show them a use or two for mines. Do you know, boy, when your grandfather –"

"M'lord?"

Miles looked up with desperate gratitude at Roic. "Yes, armsman?"

"Comconsole call from Lord Auditor Vorlaisner."

"Oh!" Thank god. "I'm very sorry, General, but I think I have to take this." He pushed upright and smiled crookedly at the old man.

Vorparadijs snorted. "Fleeing the field, boy?" he said. "Bad show. I'll leave you to it." And, with that, he turned to stalk away.

Miles rubbed his face and turned to Roic. "Is Vorlaisner really on that thing?"

"Yes, m'lord."

"All right." Miles limped over to the seat and lowered himself to sit. "Alistair. Good morning."

"Good morning, Miles. You look a bit better today."

"I feel a bit better today," Miles admitted. "Although I could have done without my wakeup call from Vorparadijs just now."

Vorlaisner winced delicately. "My sympathies."

"Well, he may have actually had something. It gives me a direction to go in, at least. You don't have the staff of the restaurant Vorhovis ate at last night shut up in there with you, do you?"

Vorlaisner took a moment to tap a few buttons. "No," he said after a moment. "We had one employee – a kitchen assistant – but he's been cleared and released."

"All right. Do you know if there's a reason Vorhovis was eating there instead of at the hotel restaurant?"

"No. Do you think it's relevant?"

Miles just shrugged and shook his head; _Who can know?_ "I may stop by this afternoon. I suspect I will have a few questions to put to a few of your guests."

Vorlaisner grimaced at the polite euphemism. "I was calling to let you know that nearly all of the local constabulary has been fully cleared now."

"Nearly?" Miles seized on the word.

"Yes. One of the younger patroller has a natural allergy to fast-penta. It seems to be genetic. Once we had that clue, we followed up with his family. His sister and two cousins are also severely allergic, and his daughter has a slight sensitivity. The team questioned him thoroughly, and believes he was straightforward and honest, but they cannot mark him down as fully cleared. Ashleigh Babcock is his name."

"Babcock," Miles said. "I think I've heard that name before."

"It's a big clan here," Vorlaisner said. "I've got at least a dozen of them in here with me."

"All right," Miles said. "I'll be careful with Patroller Babcock, then. Could you send me his interrogation vids?"

"Of course. Good hunting."

"You, too." The com went dark.

It took ImpSec around fifteen seconds to track down a com number for the manager of Le Chateau Moncrief, and around two minutes for Miles to wake him, determine that he was not working the night before last, and get the identity of the man who was. It took another thirty seconds to get that man on the comconsole. He disgorged the name of the waitress who'd served Vorhovis. Ha.

Miles decided to make this visit in state, so snagged a breakfast bar from the kitchen. _Just think,_ he mused. _At home you could have had a nice serving of bug butter. Whyever would anyone want breakfast bars?_ He shuddered.

"Ah… m'lord?" Roic stepped into the doorway, trepidation in his stance. "A message just came in from your lady mother."

"Ah?" Miles raised his eyebrows.

"She says Janikowski and Kovich are on their way down, m'lord, to back me up. She says, er, that if you think you can walk into this kind of danger with just me, you've got another think coming, m'lord, and that she wants a word when you get home."

"Oh." Miles considered this. "Hmm. Pym is still with Ekaterin and the twins, then. Good. When do Jankowski and Kovich touch down?"

"Nine o'clock, m'lord, on the commercial shuttle to New Avonlea. They'll take a lightflyer from there. Should be in around ten thirty."

"All right," Miles said, calculating. "Well, I'll plan to be back here by then, to meet them. For now, let's go visit Audra Wolkawicz."

#

Audra Wolkawicz was sleeping. Miles dispatched her father, with whom she lived, upstairs to wake her, politely cutting off the man's half-terrified babble of concern and question. An Imperial Auditor's interest in his daughter was not, it seemed, in the scope of the man's experience.

Miss Wolkawicz, when she arrived, was a heavy-boned woman in her mid-twenties, hair trendily cut but mussed with sleep. She moved hesitantly, as if she had to force herself into the room. She was clearly terrified. "My Lord Auditor?" she asked, bobbing an unsteady curtsey.

Miles bowed in automatic response. "Miss Wolkawicz," he said. "I am Lord Auditor Miles Vorkosigan. I am looking into the final movements of Lord Auditor Vorhovis. I understand you were one of the last to speak with him, at Le Chateau Moncrief. I would like your description of that evening."

Wolkawicz's expression eased a few degrees. "Oh," she said. "Yeah. Sure. I saw him that night. He had the Salade d'Asperges, the Gigot d'Agneau au Jus, a Crème Brûlée and most of a bottle of Chateau Pierre de Sept Sapins."

Miles raised his eyebrows. "Good memory," he said.

She shrugged, looking a bit sheepish as she sank onto the couch. Miles sat opposite her, leaving Roic to loom by the wall. "He was memorable," she said. "My first Imperial Auditor."

Miles nodded understanding. "So he had… " He couldn't possibly duplicate her feat with that menu, so he supplied only, "some wine? Expensive?"

" Chateau Pierre de Sept Sapins? Mid-range. It's from Vortashpula's District, and is getting some good attention lately. The sommelier just tell you more."

"Did he recommend it to Vorhovis?"

"Oh, no. Lord Auditor Vorhovis picked it himself."

"Did it seem… hmm." Miles thought about how to phrase the question. "Could you get a sense of whether he wanted this wine, specifically, or wanted wine in general, and this was his choice from the available options?"

Miss Wolkawicz looked very much like she wanted to ask what this was all about, but she only said, "Well… he spent a while on the wine menu. It wasn't like he just skimmed down it, saw this, and said, 'Aha!' you know?"

Miles knew. "I understand. Did he talk with you at all, besides the business of ordering?"

"No," she said. "Or, well, he asked what I recommended, and I told him the lamb was the chef's specialty for the day, so he said he'd have that. Agneau is lamb," she added suddenly.

"Yes," Miles said. "I know."

She flushed and looked away, twiddling uncertainly with her hair. "Well, he ordered that, and the salad, and the wine, and I mostly left him alone. He smiled when he spoke, but he didn't really look happy. He had a flimsy with him, and he kept looking it over."

"He – what?" Miles sat up a bit straighter. "What kind of flimsy? What was on it?"

"Um… writing?" she sat, sinking back into her seat so that she was pressed against the back of the couch. "I didn't read it."

"No." Miles forced himself to sit back. "No, of course not." Damn it. There had been no flimsy on Vorhovis when he'd been found. Had he given it to someone? Or had someone taken it? _Six minutes from the report to Burleigh's arrival on the scene. Damn it._

Audra Wolkawicz was watching him uncertainly. He remembered to smile at her, and she relaxed a touch. He would have to go see Vorlaisner after this. If there was a chance someone on the scene had picked it up, it might still be in the hotel. Or destroyed. Damn, damn, damn.

"Did he talk to anyone else?" Miles asked.

"I don't think so," she said doubtfully.

"Think," Miles urged.

She did. After a moment, she said, "Not that I saw. He went to use the bathroom once, I think, so he could have been meeting someone in there, I guess?" She clearly didn't think this all that likely. "But he was only gone a minute or two."

"All right," Miles said. He paused, then asked the standard, "Would you be willing to repeat this testimony under fast-penta?"

"Well, I guess I'll have to at some point, right?" she said, sounding resigned. "I mean, pretty much everyone is getting questioned."

"True," Miles said. He almost added, "Don't leave town," but given the way that all avenues of escape were shut down, just now, it seemed redundant. "Well, thank you very much for your time, Miss Wolkawicz. If you remember anything else, please call me."

"Oh, sure," she said, rising as he did. She watched him go with tired, wary eyes.

Back on the street, Miles blew out his breath. "Where the hell is that damned flimsy?" he asked Roic. "And what was on it? If this was all just an excuse to get that away from him, there were at least two people in on this, one on the building and one on the ground. Might it have been just an opportunistic grab? Someone saw him down, saw the flimsy, and pocketed it?" He kicked at a stone on the ground, which went skittering away.

A speck of light caught his eye overhead, sunlight glinting off the metal of an elderly lightflyer. Miles squinted up at it. "Too early to be Kovich and Jankowski," he said. "Who else could be coming in?"

Roic touched his earbug, clearly squawking a message to him. His eyes widened, and he looked up at the lightflyer, moving very quickly now over the town. "M'lord!" he called. "Down!" Before Miles could even start to move, he felt Roic's mass hit him, and he fell hard to the stones. A flash of light seared to world to black and white, and the muffled concussion of an explosion overhead shook the earth.


	6. Chapter 6

Roic's weight pressed Miles against the hard stone, and he couldn't catch his breath, but he knew better than to move. Overhead, piece of burning metal danced their way down from a high explosion. They lay very still until the last echoes of the explosion were gone. When Roic finally moved, cautiously, to kneel beside him, Miles could see that the residents of the nearby houses were crowding out onto their lawns, staring in open-mouthed astonishment up at the sky.

What was it about explosions, Miles wondered irritably, that turned people into such idiots? Even with Roic's weight off of him, he couldn't seem to catch his breath. His muscles were not responding to his instructions. It was like some reversal of his old motto: too much momentum at rest. He shouldn't have stopped.

Roic had a hand on his earpiece again. "What t'hell was that?" he demanded, sounding half-angry, half-frightened to Miles's experienced ear. Then: "Aw, hell. All right." He turned to Miles. "M'lord, we have to get up and back to the hotel."

"I… think I may need some help," Miles admitted. "I think Ekaterin may have been right that it was too early to do without the cane." The damned cane was supposed to have been a temporary measure after the mess on Graf Station, temporary like his leg braces. _Temporary like your seizures, ha._

Roic's lips thinned, and he glanced around at their staring audience, then got an arm under Miles to help him up. They began limping down the street, Roic mostly supporting Miles with a hand under his armpit.

"What happened?" Miles asked as they moved.

"Not sure, m'lord," Roic answered. "The lightflyer looked to be headed towards the hotel. When it didn't respond to challenges, they shot it down, but it looks like it was packed with some kind of explosives."

"Which hotel?"

"The Travelogue, m'lord."

The crime scene, then, was the presumed target, and not the witnesses. Well, that was something. Damn, damn, damn.

"Is anyone hurt?"

"Not sure, m'lord. All the Auditor security teams have checked in. They're, ah, a bit annoyed with you for not taking your ImpSec guard. At me, too." Even through his stress, Roic sounded a bit glum.

"Hah," Miles wheezed. "Well, I think they can safely add you and me to the list of people annoyed at us for that." Ahead, a piece of incendiary lightflyer had crashed into the awning of a shop, which lay in the street, warped and burning. Roic steered them wide around it. "The other Auditors are all unhurt?"

"Yes, m'lord."

As the rounded the corner to the main street, they spied a quartet of ImpSec guards jogging up the road towards them One let out familiar strangled cry, half-relief and half-exasperation, and they fell into formation around Miles. "My lord!"

"Yes, yes," Miles said impatiently, "you can lecture me when this is over. _After_ someone has explained how a damned lightflyer filled with damned explosives got past your vaunted ImpSec security cordon."

The ImpSec man had no answer to that, or prudently chose not to offer it. When they returned to the house, Miles was handed over into the custody of the more senior team. "Lord Vorkosigan!" Major Papadakis rose to his feet, looking grey with relief. "Thank god. All are present and accounted for." Behind him were Captain Chevalier and another man, an ImpSec captain.

"Good," Miles snapped. "Major, what the hell happened?"

"A lightflyer launched from within city limits, my Lord Auditor," Papadakis rapped out briskly. "We ordered it down twice, with no response. The third order included a warning that we would fire. When we did fire, it was discovered that the lightflyer was loaded with explosives. We suspect the flyer was remotely piloted."

"Where the hell did they get that many explosives in a little town like this?" Miles felt his irritation spilling out, and fought to contain it.

Several sets of confused eyes regarded him. "My lord, this is a mining town," Chevalier said after a moment, his tone careful.

"Oh." _Oh._ Yes, the Teklis Mining Company doubtless had explosives enough to fill dozens of lightflyers ten times over. "They weren't _guarded_? What the hell kind of operation are they running here?" Miles scrubbed his face. "Tell me someone's already started you bright boys on inventorying the remaining stock."

"Ah, yes, my Lord Auditor," Papadakis said. "Lord Auditor Vorgustafson dispatched a team with two men from the mining company."

"Good. Did you get the nav beacon recording? Whose lightflyer was it?"

"It belongs to Madam Eleni Suvari. She's a widow, and lives alone, but she's still in custody at the Weathercrest."

"Shit." Miles sat, shrugging off Roic's arm. "Someone, go find me a walking stick. I'll need it by the time my other two armsmen arrive here, and if some trigger-happy goon blows their lightflyer, I will personally rain hell down on every idiot in the chain of command from Gregor Vorbarra on down to the idiot with his hands on the controls. Understood?"

"Yes, my Lord Auditor," Chevalier said crisply. "I will pass your instructions on to my men. For the record, my lord, I personally commend the quick action and precise work of my men who were on the guns today. They executed their orders exactly, and were not in any way at fault for the mistakes that led to this fiasco."

Miles frowned at the captain for a minute, considering him. Chevalier looked back levelly. "I understand, captain," Miles said at last. "I meant no slight on your gunnery teams."

"Thank you, my Lord Auditor." Chevalier bowed slightly.

Miles studied him for another few seconds, then looked back at Papadakis. "If this is not meant as a diversionary tactic to drive us mad—" a possibility Miles supposed he should not dismiss out of hand – "then our adversary here is targeting the Travelogue for a reason. There may be some evidence there that we have not yet found. I want you to call in another team – a damned battalion if necessary – and set them to tearing the hotel down to bare rock if necessary. Shred the mattresses. Smash the walls. I want the weapon found, if it is in there, and I want every damned flimsy that turns up from the basement to the roof. Call in an analyst to review and sort those flimsies. I want a description of everything."

Major Papadakis looked less than overjoyed, somehow; doubtless he was imagining the hotel owner's reaction to this "search". But he said only, "Yes, my lord."

"I want to know how those explosives were safeguarded and how they got out. I want Madame Suvari's interrogation expedited, and I want the vid of it. I want a list of everyone who lives in her neighborhood. And I want someone to find that damned _gun_!"

Papadakis and the ImpSec captain flinched at the last word, which was nearly a shout. Miles took a minute to catch his breath – he was getting dangerously wound up – and then snapped: "Move!" at them.

Two minutes later, he and Roic were alone in the room. Miles scrubbed his face with his hands.

"M'lord? Do you need coffee or anything?"

"Oh, god, yes. Coffee and some painkillers."

Miles slid over to the secured comconsole and keyed it on. It was already midday in Vorbarr Sultana, and he placed a call to Ekaterin at Vorkosigan House. She did not answer the com: likely out on errands or with the children. Their birthday, he realized with a start, was the next day. Oh, hell.

He left a brief message, undetailed. She might hear some disturbing news; be assured that everyone was unhurt; he'd speak to her soon; he loved her. It wasn't enough, but it had to be.

When Roic brought the requested supplies, he popped the pills and gratefully downed the coffee. He stared at the blank screen. "Do you know," he said after a moment, "the more I look at this, the more I begin to doubt that we're dealing with a criminal genius. Stupidity can be harder to track than intelligence sometimes, because it's so inconsistent."

"Harder to predict, m'lord, but not harder to track, usually. People leave things behind."

Miles frowned, considering this. "Mm. Maybe these people have, and we just haven't seen it yet. The problem here is too _much_ data. Our facts are getting lost in the noise, and our culprits are panicking and spraying destruction around themselves. At least one of them was not caught in our net. Eventually, they'll kill someone else."

"Yes, m'lord." Roic had seen too much of mankind to question this judgment.

The wait for data always seemed unending, but Miles could not rush the teams he'd set in motion. Given a few minutes of downtime, he should check in with his fellow Auditors and put together an interim report to Gregor. Very soon, he suspected, he would be a good deal busier.


	7. Chapter 7

Jankowski and Kovich responded very properly to the security challenge when they approached Vorgarin's Landing and were, accordingly, not shot down. By the time they reached Miles, he had reviewed the incredibly boring interrogation of Madame Suvari, tried and failed to glean anything from the list of her neighbors. He was now watching the complete fast-penta interrogations of the municipal guardsmen just for something to do. There wasn't much of interest in them, other than a highly entertaining diatribe against him that Burleigh launched into uninvited at one point. Ah, well. No one said an Imperial Auditor was there to make friends.

Vorparadijs was on the monitor of his comconsole, in a vid interview with a reporter from Vorbarr Sultana. "Do you know the last time an Imperial Auditor was killed in the middle of an active case?" he demanded of the newsie, who seemed more than a little intimidated by the looming Auditor. Miles could sympathize.

"It was a little after Emperor Ezar defeated Yuri," Vorparadijs went on, not waiting for a reply. "One of his new Auditors was killed looking into who started a revolt in Vorsmythe's District. Emperor Ezar sent in two Auditors and a cavalry company, and had them set fire to the town. The women and children were allowed to leave first, of course." The fate of the men was left to the imagination of the listener. Miles grimaced. If he recalled his history, most of them were actually allowed to leave, destitute and homeless.

"It was… a different time then, of course," the newsie tried.

Vorparadijs stared at the man with disdain clear in his aged features. "Ha," he said, nearly spitting the words. "We're still men underneath. We're still Barrayaran." No, Miles realized with horrified fascination, the man actually was spitting. "We try to find the innocent to spare them, but every day this goes on, I will promise you, we get a step closer to… measures. The guilty party will rot in Traitor's Square. The only question is how much company he has."

The newsie looked appalled. The network cut hastily to the mayor. "We are strongly urging anyone with information to come forward," he said in an oily voice, "to expedite –" Miles switched off the vid.

"I need someone to _find_ something," he said irritably, tapping his new, hastily-purchased cane against the leg of the coffee table. "I hate just sitting here." Kovich, he noticed guiltily, was tensing noticeably every time his cane hit the wood. He stopped tapping. "I wouldn't expect anything from the hotel yet, but surely someone must have something to tell me." His armsmen, well used to this type of fidget, just regarded him placidly. "Anything at all would do."

The comconsole blatted. Miles hit the button to turn it on. "Yes?"

It was Major Papadakis, who had clearly expected a longer delay before Miles picked up. He started noticeably at the immediate reply, but gathered himself to say, "My Lord Auditor, I believe my men have found the source of the explosives."

He waited a second for a reply. Miles twitched an impatient hand at him. "Go on, major."

"Ah. Well, there are a few storage sites for equipment past its service date. One of those bunkers held fifty kilos of a blasting powder that was rendered obsolete two years ago by an improved formula. Technically, the powder should have been properly disposed of at a licensed center. Practically, these things tend to accumulate. The powder is missing, and the lock has been forced."

Miles made himself count to five before he replied, just to be sure he'd processed the information correctly. "All right," he said. "Tell me how it was guarded."

"It wasn't, my Lord Auditor. There was the security guard who patrolled the grounds, but it wasn't considered a secured area." Papadakis sounded nearly as frustrated with this as Miles felt.

"Wasn't con—" Miles cut himself off. "Well. All right. Who had access?"

"We may have gotten lucky there, my Lord Auditor. While nearly anyone might have snuck on-site and accessed the bunker, not many people should have known the explosives were there. Most of them are mine employees, and were caught up in the sweep that picked up suspects for questioning. However, there are eight mine employees who were not picked up in that sweep – most were out of town, and we can check on their whereabouts – and thirty-one mine employees who quit or were let go after they replaced the powder."

"Get your people tracking whereabouts for all of them as soon as possible," Miles said. "You have that as an order in my voice."

"Thank you, my Lord Auditor," Papadakis said. "That will expedite things."

"I'm coming out there, major. Do you have anywhere else you need to be, or can you show me the site personally?"

"I'll wait for you here, my Lord Auditor."

"Good. Vorkosigan out." Miles cut the com and pushed to his feet. "Kovich, call for a car and someone who can get us to the mine in it."

While he waited, the comconsole sang again. Miles lunged for it, still on edge for news. "Yes?"

It was Vorgustafson's face this time, and he looked fresher than Miles had seen him in days, lit with an inner intensity. "Miles," he said. "We may have a crack here."

Miles dropped into the seat. "What's happening?" he asked.

"It looks as if Vorparadijs may actually be doing us some good," Vorgustafson said dryly. "After his interview, we got a call from one of our people locked up here. He wants to confess to his part in the financial end of this fiasco. He insists he had no part in the shooting; we'll confirm that under fast-penta. At any rate, he's giving names and dates. We've got the thread, and it's unraveling part of this mess."

Miles's lips parted in anticipation. "Oh," he breathed. "Do you need me there? I was about to head out to the mines; they figured out where the explosives came from. I can delay."

"No, we'll be a few hours here at least, and the Professor and I have it well in hand," Vorgustafson assured him. "Keep working on your end, and we'll update you when we get something you can use."

"Right. Happy hunting, Vann."

"You, too." Vorgustafson disconnected the con.

Miles sat still a minute and brooded over this news. When the military groundcar pulled up in front of the building, he rose painfully to his feet and limped out to climb inside.

#

With Roic, Jankowski, and Kovich all in tow, Miles would not have felt at all guilty about shaking off his ImpSec detachment, but for this trip they doubled as tour guides, steering them past the checkpoints and around the mine buildings to the storage bunker. Uniformed men clustered around it as Miles climbed out of the car. A quick glance around the area located Papadakis standing near the forensics men examining the door.

The ImpSec major saluted as Miles approached. Miles met it with an acknowledging nod and a terse, "Tell me what's happening here now." He did not mention the exciting new trend to the investigation back in Vorgarin's Landing.

"We're searching for any kind of trace evidence or print left behind," Papadakis said. "We lifted one footprint which seems to be recent, and we're looking at shoe size and approximate weight from that. We believe the lock was cut off the door with a hand-held laser saw. We have a number of prints. Most will be innocent, of course, but we'll look for intersections of the print list and other lists we generate."

Miles nodded. "Where was the powder stored?"

Papadakis gestured to the door, and the two men went inside. At a nod from Jankowski, Roic followed them. The other two armsmen remained outside.

The room was chaotic, with bits of machinery, canisters, and tools scattered randomly across the floor. Boxed were opened, their contents spilled freely across the stone underfoot. Miles eyed it warily. "Nothing is here is toxic, is it, major?"

"No, my lord," Papadakis answered. Miles heard Roic exhale behind him and suppressed an upwards twitch of his lips.

"All right," Miles said. "So. Did the miners keep the bunker looking like this, did the thief tear it apart, or was it done by the teams later, looking for the missing powder?" He touched the side of a metal box carefully with the tip of his cane.

"The thief did it, my Lord Auditor," Papadakis replied. "The bunker was apparently kept poorly arranged, with old equipment piled against the walls. The powder would have been some bit down one of the piles."

Miles nodded. "Is the crime scene team done in here?" he asked.

"Yes, my lord. It's safe to move around."

Miles did so, moving cautiously through the rubble. "Hm," he said after a moment. "Major, does this mess suggest anything to you?"

"Well, he clearly didn't know where the powder was," Papadakis said. "He was in a hurry, or didn't care about concealment. It took some time to make this much mess and wouldn't have been quiet, so either he was fairly confident about not being picked up by security or he didn't think about the possibility. Security didn't even know there was anything in here that needed securing. It was a dumping ground to them: trash only."

Roic crouched to look at a canister, rolling it thoughtfully on the ground. Miles turned to look at him. "Armsman?" he invited.

Roic's expression was meditative. "If it took work to find the canisters, he didn't stumble across them by accident, m'lord," he said. "He must've known they were in here, either because he'd seen the inventory records or he was around when they were putting them in storage. Or someone who knew about them told him."

Miles frowned, turning this over in his mind. "Hm." He turned slowly in the room, trying to picture it. "Do we have any evidence to suggest that it was just one man, or might there have been multiple people?" he asked.

"I… don't know, my Lord Auditor," Papadakis answered after a second.

"I wonder," mused Miles, "whether there's any way to deduce that based on the pattern of the destruction." He let his eyes drift over the chaos, half-focused, looking for the invisible line through which the searcher must have traveled as he ripped through the room. If it was there, it was not making itself apparent to his eyes. "Lord Auditor Vorthys once told me that you can get to know a man's mind by the shape of his library the same way you can know his body from the shape of his clothes," he told Papadakis. "It taught me to look for the spaces men leave behind them. I think I want to call ImpSec HQ."

It took two minutes to explain his request to General Allegre, who promised he would hand the vid models of the room off to a qualified analyst. Miles, who had no idea what qualified a man for this type of evaluation, accepted his assurances and let Allegre get back to work.

He spent another hour poking around the scene, watching the ImpSec men do their job, until he was forced to admit he would be of more active good to the investigation by going back to Vorgarin's Landing and sleeping than he was doing by intimidating the forensic team. He returned to his home base and fidgeted where he would distract no one, waiting for news and letting his hind brain scratch at the issue.

Vorlaisner's call came in close to three hours after Vorgustafson's first report. He looked tense and exhausted, and Miles's heart sank even before he spoke.

"Nothing, damn it," he said. "We've got full confessions out of all of them, and Vann's got the financial trail tracked through their files. It's just filling in details, but we've got the whole filthy mess. And none of them knows anything about the shooting." His voice was the bitter evenness of a man who's already spent his curses. "Tell me you have something more."

"Not much," Miles admitted. "I've been out to the site where the explosives were kept, but no one knows who took it yet. We've got a few lists of names, and will be sending a few people out to you when we get them rounded up. Are you going to continue just working through the names for now?"

"We'll need to get through everyone eventually," Vorlaisner said, shrugging his acquiescence. "There's no point having the interrogation teams sitting and not doing anything."

"Right," Miles said. "How are you holding up?"

Vorlaisner shrugged. "It's tedious work, but someone needs to supervise this end. I may ask Vann or the Professor to come assist now that it seems the financial side is not relevant. Do you need any help?"

"Not at present. Hurry up and wait. I need more facts to come in."

"Right." Vorlaisner grimaced. "Well, good luck."

"You, too."

It was well past lunch time, Miles realized abruptly, and the business of procuring and eating a meal used up twenty minutes, through which he waited tensely for some of his threads to dance, alerting him that the time for action had come. After lunch, he reviewed the dossiers of several of the former mine employees which had been sent to his comconsole.

When a call finally came in, an hour or so before dinnertime, he found Captain Burleigh on the other side. "We've _got_ him," he snarled.


	8. Chapter 8

This was one interrogation Miles definitely wanted to sit in on. He made sure that Burleigh was taking the suspect to the Weathercrest Hotel, then rounded up his security team and started out the door.

It took him under ten minutes to reach the hotel, and Burleigh was waiting in the lobby. "Tell me what we know," Miles instructed tersely as they walked to the lift tube.

Burleigh was almost bouncing with nervous energy. "It's Cyrus Babcock, my lord. He quit working for Seklis just over a year ago to start helping his da in his construction business. One of his neighbors saw him out of the house last night after curfew, sneaking across back yards. He lives two blocks from Madame Suvari. When my men went to collect him, he tried to bolt. He's got access to tools that can cut locks, he knew about the blasting powder, he was out of the house, he has something to hide. It's him."

Miles tried to control his own optimism on this point. He'd seen enough promising leads explode into nothing in his brief career. Still, it looked… promising.

Vorlaisner had set up the interrogation teams on the third floor, and was waiting with Cyrus Babcock, an ImpSec captain Miles did not recognize, an armed guard with stunner trained on the prisoner, and a medtech. Babcock was healthy and strong, in his early twenties, perhaps, and had the rising purple of a fresh bruise under his left eye. He was bound securely to his chair, and had a look of defiance and fear which Miles had seen far too many times.

Burleigh, Roic, and Jankowski all accompanied Miles into the room, which was starting to feel very crowded. Miles nodded a greeting to Vorlaisner. "I'm only here to watch," he said.

Vorlaisner nodded back, then turned to the ImpSec man. "Captain Lambert," he instructed formally. "You may begin."

Lambert nodded. The medtech, knowing his cue, placed a test patch on Babcock's bound forearm and felt for his pulse. "Cyrus Babcock," Lambert began formally, "you are an official suspect in the assassination of Lord Auditor Vorhovis and the attempted bombing of the Travelogue Hotel. Your refusal to cooperate with our investigation has been registered. We require your testimony."

"Captain?" The medtech interrupted quietly, but his voice was strained. Miles glanced over at him, and saw the red welts rising up Babcock's arm. _Oh, shit…_

Lambert's lips thinned. The medtech looked oddly embarrassed, as though the test result was his fault. Vorlaisner's face was very, very still. Only Burleigh spoke. "Oh, _fuck_," he said. On the whole, Miles couldn't argue with the evaluation.

Burleigh whirled to glare at Miles, as if the situation were somehow his fault. "Well, here is your chance, my Lord Auditor," he said, frustration and bitterness boiling from his voice. "What was it you said about fast-penta? You'd 'unflinching' use other methods? Well, here's a chance to throw your muscle around, huh?"

Miles stared at him for a long minute, his heart thudding in his chest. Responses welled up, from abrasive to cutting. But Burleigh was not the audience that mattered here. He could not glance at Cyrus Babcock to measure his reaction to this. He could not register him at all. Not now.

Burleigh knew he had made a mistake. Miles could see it in his face, and he could see the weight of his own silence pressing in on the captain. He counted silently for another ten seconds, then said, "Captain." His voice was hollow in the room, which was otherwise silent. "I need you to go get me a basin to hold water and some clean towels."

Burleigh stared at him, a horrifying awareness growing in his face. "My lord, I didn't –" He broke off, not sure where to take the sentence.

"A basin," Miles repeated, "and clean towels." He turned past Babcock, who was staring at him, skin going gray. "Captain Lambert," he said, "you are dismissed. Medtech, you may go with him. Leave your kit."

"Yes, my Lord Auditor." Miles could not read in their expressions what they made of this situation, but they took advantage of the opportunity to escape it. The medtech moved with undue haste.

"Alistair." Miles turned to Vorlaisner. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to."

Vorlaisner looked grim. "I'll stay."

Miles nodded and turned away. As he had expected, Burleigh was still frozen in place, staring. "Captain Burleigh," he said gently. "I may have been unclear. I request and require that you obtain for me a basin and some clean towels. Once you have done that, you will be free to go. For now." He held Burleigh's eyes until the man nodded, reluctantly, and stepped backwards towards the door. Burleigh fumbled with the door knob for a minute without looking at it, but got it open and fled down the hall.

Miles watched the door for a moment. He felt very cold. Without looking at Babcock, he slowly and deliberately removed his jacket and placed it on the bed, then undid his cuffs and rolled up his sleeves. The theater of this felt like oil on his skin. He wondered how long he had before Burleigh returned. _Make the most of it, boy._

At last, he left himself look at Cyrus Babcock. The boy -- _man,_ Miles corrected himself firmly – was staring at him greyly, his mouth slightly open, his breath coming shallowly. He was still trying to be brave, damn him, with his shoulders held rigid and his hands clenched as if physically holding the secrets Miles so desperately needed to know. Miles could see the wetness in his eyes and staining his shirt under his arms. He could smell the sour sweat. Nausea coiled in the pit of his stomach.

_Don't raise the pressure, lower the wall,_ he thought. The problem here was that he could not see the wall. He didn't know its shape. What was keeping Babcock silent? Pride? Fear? If fear, was it for himself or someone else. There had to have been at least two people at the Travelogue Hotel. Who was the second, and what were they to Cyrus Babcock?

"I am sorry about this," he said, forcing his voice to light regret. "We do have a little time before he returns. Delay… is not an option, in this case. Fast-penta is a fine tool for investigators, but in cases such as this, it really serves the suspects equally. I do wish we could handle this differently."

Babcock was choosing rigid silence as his form of resistance. It was an effective one, for the moment. If Miles could get the boy -- _man_ \-- talking, he could work him around. One-sided dialogues went nowhere, changed nothing. He cast about for some sort of lead. For a cowardly moment, he wished Vorparadijs was here. He glanced up at Vorlaisner, a shadow against the wall. Vorlaisner offered him a small nod, no help at all. He wished, desperately, for a telepathic link with Vorlaisner, a way to coordinate a two-man tag team. They both worked alone too much of the time. He wondered if Vorlaisner was wishing the same thing. That was a horrifying thought, that Vorlaisner might have some brilliant idea and refrain from acting on it for fear of queering Miles's pitch.

Miles was stalling. He looked back down at Babcock, and tried a neutral lead. "Do you need to use the facilities before we talk?" he asked. "Or do you need any water?"

Babcock shook his head, but his eyes went to the little vanity sink. Miles followed his gaze. "Roic," he said, "please get a glass of water for Cyrus." By turning to watch the armsman's path across the room, Miles could turn and face away from Babcock for a minute. His eyes met Roic's for a moment, and he widened them slightly in a quiet message.

Roic, bless him, found the intended meaning in the little gesture. He lowered himself to one knee beside the still-bound Babcock and held the glass to his lips. "Here," he said quietly. Babcock swallowed a few sips, coughed, and swallowed again.

"Thank you," he said quietly, not looking at Miles.

Roic nodded. "Did you know about the fast-penta allergy before you came in?" he asked, his backcountry accent warm and familiar.

Babcock shook his head. "Thought that was only a ImpSec thing," he said, voice rough. "I heard about –" He broke off, looking warily at Miles.

"I should have anticipated the possibility," Miles said, nodding to Roic, who moved back. "Babcock – that name keeps coming up. There was a Babcock in the Municipal Guard. Ashleigh Babcock. A relative?"

"M'uncle," Cyrus Babcock responded cautiously.

"We were questioning all of the guards, just as a precaution. He was fast-penta allergic. Your allergy seems to be genetic. There are a few other members of the family in here as well who had a reaction. Just out of curiosity, was Captain Babcock of the municipal guard a relation?"

Cyrus shifted and looked away. A clue, or just family tensions? _Don't let him shut down again…_

"Ah," Miles said. "One of those relations, then? I have a few of those myself. It's ironic, actually; I have a minor fast-penta allergy myself, which has made my life more difficult from time to time."

Babcock's eyes widened, then narrowed. "You're making that up," he accused.

Miles shrugged, then pulled a test patch from the kit and applied it to his forearm. Babcock's eyes clung to the test patch. Miles went on. "My allergy is not the fatal one that ImpSec gives its operatives, though I was in ImpSec for ten years. It is non-lethal: more an odd reaction than a true allergy. That did not stop my few fast-penta interrogations from being remarkably unpleasant situations, however." He grimaced in memory.

"What – " Babcock broke off.

"Mm?" Miles invited him with an open hand.

"What were they questioning you about?"

Miles measured him with his eyes. Truth for truth? Maybe. "Security information. There was an infiltration plot, and they wanted me to supply them with routines and schedules."

"Did you?"

Miles smiled bleakly and lied. "Eventually." In truth, it had gone the other way around: he had given information early, until he had found his own shield. He had no doubt his statement would have been true if they had chosen to spend more time working on him.

The door chimed, and at a nod from Miles, Jankowski went to open it. Burleigh was standing there with a stack of a half-dozen fluffy white towel, a shallow mixing bowl atop them. Miles rose from his seat to look at the captain, who did not seem to want to come into the room. "Armsman, you can put those on the bed. Captain Burleigh, wait for me there." Jankowski took the pile and closed the door on Burleigh's white face.

Babcock, oppressed by the captain's brief arrival, had fallen silent. Fortunately, Miles had his next opening already waiting. He sat again, peeled off the test patch, and held out his arm. "See?" The raised pink burr proclaimed his odd sensitivity to the truth drug. Babcock stared at the patch, then tracked the lines of the scars up Miles's forearm. Miles grimaced and rubbed at one of them.

"Sometimes life takes you to very unpleasant places," he said. "You take a step, unthinking, and find your feet on a road you never expected. It can take all of your courage sometimes to stop and see where you are. I think, Cyrus, that neither of us is standing on a road we want to go down. I'm held to it by my oath. What is keeping you there?"

"I –" Babcock broke off, and Miles's heart lurched. _Tell me, tell me, tell me…_ It was pounding through his heat like the percussion track to this whole filthy conversation. He did not dare to speak for several heartbeats, willing the man to keep going, to fill the silence. More heartbeats. Perhaps a minute ticked by in that silent room, perhaps two. "I can't," he said finally, weakly.

_Good, good,_ Miles chanted inside. Keep him talking, keep him talking. "I can understand that," he said gently. "There are people who rely on you."

Babcock nodded, and Vorlaisner's eyes widened slightly behind him. It was not time to risk anything with another guess. Miles instead took the medtech's kit on his lap and began to study the contents. Vorlaisner moved quietly to a comconsole and sat, moving smoothly so as to not distract Babcock.

"Then let's not talk about them," Miles invited. "How long did you work at the mines?"

"Three years." Babcock wasn't looking at him now, eyes on the ground instead.

"Doing what?"

"Shipping and receiving. Mostly shipping. There was a lot of outgoing product to load up."

It was not, Miles judged, time to mention the powder yet. "You left to work for your father?"

Babcock shrugged, then looked down at the bindings on his wrists, trying the motion again to test the chafe.

"Why?" Miles pressed.

"He needed help," Babcock said. "More future in it."

"Ah." Future. Right. Miles was sure of very little in this fiasco, but he knew there was very, very little chance Cyrus Babcock had any future at all. _Don't let him stop._ "Do you like the work?"

"I like work," Cyrus answered, tone loosening almost into frankness. "I'm good at it." Miles could believe it, with the young man's sturdy physique.

"Is it just you and your father, then, or do you have brothers in the business?"

Vorlaisner glanced up at this, waiting for a reaction, but Babcock didn't falter. "It's just me and him. One brother's in the mines, and the other's waiting to go into the service. M'sister's getting married in the spring."

"And you? Any young lady?"

Babcock's lips clamped shut. His face closed. He glanced, unmistakably, at the medtech's kit. _Ah._

Vorlaisner grimaced, then tapped a few keys on the comconsole. Miles exhaled. "Cyrus," he said quietly.

Babcock looked up, tense again. Miles could see him deciding to shut down, and chose his moment. He leaned forward. "Whoever you think you are protecting, Cyrus, you are not helping them. I will not leave – I _cannot_ leave – until I am certain the guilty party has been found and punished. I will tell you what I know. I know that you stole the explosives used in an attempt to destroy the travelogue hotel. I know you were not working alone. I know that whoever you were working with is still in this town. I know that whoever you were working with will. Be. Found." He paused for a moment to let this sink in.

"Until we find her," and Cyrus did not react to the pronoun, yes, "I know that we will continue to disrupt the lives and livelihoods of everyone in this town. I know that people are suffering. I know that I am bound by my oath to stay on this path." He paused, then spun with it, throwing the line to his intuition. "I know that you did not kill Lord Auditor Vorhovis." Cyrus swallowed, and he stared desperately at Miles. "I know," Miles said deliberately, "that you believe you know who did."

They sat there for a frozen moment. Babcock did not try to deny it. "Cyrus," Miles said, very gently, "I know that whoever asked you to get those explosives did not care if you found yourself in this position. I know that you want to protect that person. But I also know that time is very, very short. We need to know what you believe and why you believe it. If you can give that to me, I may be able to spare you a traitor's death. If you cannot give it to me, I will take it. And there will be nothing at all that I can give you in return."

Very carefully, Vorlaisner touched a key on the comconsole. As if on cue (and, of course, it was), the comconsole chimed an incoming call alert. Vorlaisner keyed it on.

Cyrus closed his eyes against his tears, which streaked his cheeks. Miles despised himself, and sat quietly, watching the man he was killing so gently.

Vorlaisner said, quietly, "This is not a convenient time, Major." Silence. "When?" His voice was sharp. "How far outside town? Did she clear the fences?" Pause. "Good. Yes. Bring her back here. We need a bit longer to finish up in here."

Miles glanced over Cyrus's shoulder, an eyebrow raised. "Alistair?" he queried.

"Someone caught trying to break past the fence," Vorlaisner replied. "Alys Léglise. Have you heard the name?"

Cyrus stopped breathing. "Léglise," Miles repeated, looking past the young man without reacting. "Actually, yes. The name was on my list of neighbors of Madame Suvari. Interesting. Well, we'll have to—"

Cyrus Babcock made a small sound like a dying animal, half whimper and half sob, almost suppressed. He did not manage. Miles and Vorlaisner both looked at him.

"Ah," Miles said gently. "Cyrus. Can you tell us about Alys Léglise?"

And Cyrus did.


	9. Chapter 9

Alys Léglise was seventeen and beautiful. Cyrus had been a bit in love with her since he was twenty and she was fourteen and dating his kid brother. She was kind, loyal, intelligent, and good. Last summer, she had let him touch her in the back of his da's aircar, and her skin had felt so good under his fingers and lips. He hadn't gone any further than that, though, because she was a proper girl, and Cyrus meant to marry her some day.

Cyrus's brother Hugh had dropped Alys after a few months, telling Cyrus she was no fun. Cyrus understood that meant she wouldn't put out, and thought his brother was an idiot, but she was still too young for him. So he waited, and he worked at the mines, and Alys Léglise had gone out with Vlad Orlov, who had also been too old for her, but was the son of a local lawyer. Vlad Orlov was going to go to college and have a real future, except that he had drowned a year ago when he'd gotten drunk and gone swimming alone at night.

That was when Cyrus had left the mine to work with his da. Construction wasn't as important as law, he knew, but people always needed construction done. It was steady work, good work, and he could be good at it. If he got really good, he knew, rich people from the big cities always liked handmade pieces, and could pay well. It would be enough to take care of Alys, to support their children. Soon, he'd be in a place to offer for her.

When the assassination of Lord Auditor Vorhovis had disrupted everyone's life a few days ago, Alys had run to Cyrus. He had folded her in his arms and let her cry, and he had ached to make it better. She told him that her brother had been caught up in the sweep. She told him he'd hidden something she'd needed, and now she couldn't get it. She'd asked if he could find her something explosive, to blow the opening of a local cave. He had said he couldn't. It was not the right time. There were guards. No one would sell it. She mentioned the mines. He'd remembered the blasting powder.

Miles could see the whole sickening thing unfold. Poor, brave Cyrus, none too bright, caught up in imagining himself someone's brave rescuer, had been an easy target for a scrambling manipulator. Vorlaisner, he was certain, had already sent out an arrest order for Alys Léglise, but it would take some time. "When did you realize what she'd done?" he asked.

"Not right away," Cyrus said. He'd cried earlier, and his voice was rough now. "I'd told her I'd come by later today and help her use it. I thought – I thought someone had stolen it. But then she wasn't at home, and she didn't come to see me, and... when the guards came for me... I didn't want to betray her." He sounded faintly bitter.

Miles could empathize, and shut the feeling down harshly. "And when you realized?"

"Everyone was talking about the lightflyer," Cyrus said quietly. "Everyone said it had something to do with Lord Auditor Vorhovis, and she was crying right after... I realized... I guess I thought she must have known something."

The boy was miserable, weighed down by the enormity of his mistakes. If things had been reversed, Miles reflected bitterly, with the poor simple girl deceived by the clever boy, he could probably have saved her. Cyrus would be spared a traitor's end, per Miles's implied promise, but his Auditor's authority could not save the boy's life, not after this. Stupidity was not a defense, not for a man grown.

"But she never said anything to you explicitly?" Miles confirmed, for the record.

"No." Cyrus's voice was low, his shoulders slumped. Miles glanced at Vorlaisner, who shook his head. Miles exhaled. How long, he wondered, would it have taken Cyrus to come forward? Maybe not so many more hours. If their investigation had been a little slower, might Cyrus have been a voluntary confession, salvageable? _Oh, hell. No what ifs this time._

"Cyrus Babcock," he said heavily, "you are under arrest as an accomplice to attempted murder, charged with attempted murder, theft, and obstruction of an Auditorial investigation. You will be sent to Vorbarr Sultana to await trial and sentencing at the Emperor's discretion."

The words hardly seemed to register with Cyrus, whose head only lowered a degree or two further. Miles paused to see whether the boy would add anything, then rose to his feet and crossed to open the door. "Captain Lambert," he said to the waiting ImpSec interrogator, "Cyrus Babcock is to be remanded to Imperial custody in Vorbarr Sultana. Find someone to deliver him there."

"Yes, my Lord Auditor," Lambert said. He glanced at the door, as if steeling himself for what he might see within. "Will – should I arrange for a medtech to accompany him?"

"That will not be necessary," Miles said flatly. His eyes went to Burleigh, standing tensely against the wall. The municipal guard straightened in response. Miles's voice was dead flat. "Captain Burleigh," he said, "your outright insolence and stupidity may have cost that boy in there his life, a boy guilty of little more than stupidity himself. You are relieved of your post. I am conscripting you into the Imperial Service. Go find Captain Chevalier and tell him you are to be assigned to Cecil Base. I will be speaking with him."

Burleigh stared at him for a minute. Miles watched him with an almost clinical curiosity. This would be an interesting measure of the depth of the man's stupidity. Burleigh opened his mouth; his shoulders tensed. From beside the door, Armsman Kovich shifted his weight. Burleigh closed his mouth and exhaled. "I understand. My Lord Auditor." Not quite as stupid as poor Cyrus Babcock, then. Perhaps Burleigh would get the chance to learn.

"Now, Burleigh." Miles allowed his voice no inflection. Burleigh hesitated a second further, then turned to walk down the hallway. Miles wondered distantly what the man would say right now with an under fast-penta. It would probably feel less amusing than his earlier diatribe.

Lambert was making a call to arrange an aircar for prisoner transport, and Vorlaisner had come to the door behind Miles. Miles met his eyes, wondering if his reflected the bleakness he felt inside. Vorlaisner said simply, "Alys Léglise has gone into hiding. No one seems to know where she is. Major Papadakis is organizing a house-to-house search. We'll find her."

Miles nodded, his mouth twisted in something with no resemblance to a smile. "Yes. I am sure we will." _Alys Léglise was seventeen..._ He shook his head, then said, "Well. While we're waiting, I'm going to go find Captain Chevalier, then get some sleep. Where are Vann and the Professor?"__

"Vann is sleeping. Professor Vorthys went out to the mine, and will be back in a few minutes."

"Let him know about this?" Miles asked. "He may want to see if Léglise or her family have any connection to this financial mess. If her father or brother or uncle were involved, we may have a motive in there."

"We'll deal with it, Miles."

Vorlaisner's voice was soothing, but Miles winced anyway. "Sorry," he said. "Habit."

"Believe me," Vorlaisner said dryly, "I can understand that.

"Ha," Miles agreed. "If nothing else comes up before then, I'll see you in the morning."

They traded nods, and Miles moved off in search of Chevalier.

#

He found the captain at one of the checkpoints. Chevalier looked harassed; Miles felt a brief twinge of regret at adding to the man's burdens, but suppressed it ruthlessly. With his trio of armsmen following alertly, Miles made a bit of a stir as he approached, and Chevalier had time to issue some last instruction to a lieutenant before crossing to meet him.

"My Lord Auditor." Chevalier gave a shallow bow. "I received your instructions from Burleigh. He'll be leaving with a standard troop reassignment in just under an hour."

"Good," Miles said. He studied the other man for a minute, then jerked his head back towards the town. "Walk with me, captain," he said.

Chevalier nodded his acquiescence and began walking, patient and alert. Miles paced him, using his cane for support. He ached all over: body, head, and heart. He longed to see Ekaterin again, and Aral and Helen. He thought it was probably time to start the next one. Ekaterin had been hinting around the idea for a few weeks, now that the twins were almost two. When he got home, he'd raise the subject. Another girl, he thought.

It was nearly full dark in Vorgarin's Landing. Back in Vorbarr Sultana, it was already early the next day. The twins would be waking in a few hours, eager for their special birthday breakfast. Miles still needed to eat something before bed.

Chevalier did not interrupt his silence as they paced the streets. Miles gave himself a moment to pull his focus back to the moment. "Captain Chevalier, I reviewed your fast-penta interrogation last night, and again this morning."

"Yes, my Lord Auditor," Chevalier answered, his voice steady. "I expected you to do so."

"I have watched or conducted hundreds of fast-penta interrogations, over a hundred of them in person, Captain. I find it very interesting to measure the different responses people have under the influence of the drug. The emotional susceptibility of the subject varies extremely, and some people retain far more control than others." He did not look at Chevalier as he walked, very aware of his armsmen pacing behind him. No doubt Chevalier shared that awareness.

"I don't have your experience with fast-penta, my lord," the captain replied evenly, "but I have heard that said before."

"You, Captain, retained a noticeable degree of control despite the fast-penta." He paused, but Chevalier did not speak. "Captain Chevalier, you did a very good job in your interview, but I am aware that there was something you were avoiding saying. I am doing you the courtesy of asking you to tell me now, rather than making it a formal accusation of hindering an Auditorial investigation."

For a minute, Chevalier did not speak. Their footsteps echoed against the still buildings. Miles did not repeat the question, ignoring the weight of the silence and letting it oppress Chevalier, instead. He did not know if the man would speak, or how.

Finally, Chevalier sighed, heavily. "Josef Vorhovis and I knew each other once, over fifteen years ago," he said.

"You were posted together at Taybur Station," Miles said.

Chevalier nodded. "We were... briefly intimate."

Miles soaked in this reply, letting it match up against the evidence he'd assembled. "I see," he said at last.

"Josef was married," Chevalier said. "I was not. I don't know who else there may have been for him, through the years. I certainly haven't stayed celibate." He paused a moment, as if seeking words. "But I was young then, and it felt like something special. I hadn't seen him since. When I heard he was in Vorgarin's Landing, I sent him a brief note, inviting him to call. And then he was killed."

Miles kept walking, his eyes on the road ahead of him, his mind roiling. After a moment, he asked, "A note. What kind of note?"

"A handwritten one," Chevalier answered. "On a flimsy."

Miles exhaled. The missing flimsy, explained. Oh, hell. How much time had they spent looking for the damn thing, sorting documents, looking for meaning? The scene played out so damn smoothly. Vorparadijs had been right, of course. Vorhovis hadn't been drinking heavily for no reason. Here he had been, in the middle of a routine case, and a figure from his past arrived, a reminder of infidelity and an invitation to step again into that infidelity again. He had taken the note to dinner, had most of a bottle of wine, and indulged himself in an hour of memory and temptation. And then, more likely than not, thrown the flimsy in a waste bin as he walked by it. Nothing to do with the case at all. No second person on the ground. Hell.

He realized he had been silent for nearly a minute and said, inanely, "I am sorry, Captain. I didn't realize you were well acquainted with Lord Auditor Vorhovis."

Chevalier shook his head. "I wasn't, any longer. Not really. It was a sort of goodbye. I have been missing him for years. Things are just more strange now."

"I can understand that." They walked on in silence for a minute. "You have done very well here. This chaos had been easy on no one, and your men have been disciplined and effective."

"Thank you, my Lord Auditor."

"If you think of anything else that I might need to know, please come speak to me."

"Yes, my Lord Auditor."

Miles's chest hurt, and he found that he was leaning more heavily on his cane with every step, breath coming a bit harder. He stopped walking. "You may return to your duties, then, Captain Chevalier. Jankowski... call for a car."

The ride home was a silent one.


	10. Chapter 10

The comconsole woke him just after midnight. Miles groaned and heaved himself up, letting seconds tick by to compose himself before he turned it on. "Yes?" he asked the comconsole, trying not to let his grogginess show.

It was Captain Chevalier whose face formed over the vidplate. "My Lord Auditor," he said formally. "My men have found the gun."

Miles was at the hotel in fifteen minutes.

"It had been shoved through one of the air vents," Chevalier explained. Miles had to wonder how much sleep the captain had managed in the last three days. Rather less than he had, he imagined. "We checked them all right the first day, but it had slid down the duct and gotten wedged in a vertical section of the system. We didn't find it until we took the wall down in the stairwell. It was on a least-time path from the roof exit to the ground floor."

Miles studied the gun from a few feet away, not interrupting the forensics techs who were fastidiously collecting and documenting the trace evidence from it. It was around eighteen inches long, sleek and black. "Do we know it's the right weapon?" he asked. "Might someone else have stowed a weapon there for a completely different reason?"

Chevalier declined to comment on probabilities, just opening a hand. "We'll know when ballistics has had their turn with it."

Miles nodded.

"Captain?" A young man in a municipal guard uniform looked out from his groundcar, where we was working at the comconsole in the dash. "We've got a hit from the database. The gun's registered, and it's local."

Action! Miles felt his heartbeat accelerate, and pushed down the urge to jump into the car and order the man to drive him to the scene. "Where's Papadakis?" he asked.

"On his way," Chevalier replied.

"Good," Miles said. "Let him know I want a perimeter around the gun owner's address. No move to be made yet. If Vorlaisner's not up yet, wake him, and let him know what's going on. Tell him I'm planning to be at the house in under an hour. Give me all the information we have on the gun's legal owner. I want to read it before we head in there."

The gun's legal owner was Georg Mitsotakis, a teacher at the local secondary school. "Get someone to find out how he knows Alys Léglise," Miles instructed Roic, who moved off, leaving Miles with Jankowski and Kovich as guards. He read on. Mitsotakis was twenty-nine, married five years ago, divorced three years after that. From his image, he was a pleasantly boring-looking man, with a thin face, bookish features, and short brown hair. In a crowd, he would vanish.

He had no criminal record, and had a registered affidavit of permission to carry his weapon from Count Vortugalov's voice. His great-grandfather had carried it in the Cetagandan War, and it had found its way down the generations to him. It was a simple powder weapon, filing a single small slug of exactly the sort that had killed Lord Auditor Vorhovis. Miles wondered for an irritable moment why this had not already turned up, dammit, before recollecting a bit guiltily that the investigation was barely two days old. Doubtless it was awaiting its chance to churn up from the recesses of the planetary databases.

"M'lord?"

Roic had returned. Miles rubbed his face and checked his chrono. Twenty-three minutes of his hour were up. "Yes, armsman?"

"I have the report from the police, m'lord. Mitsotakis taught history, and Alys Léglise was in his class last year. He also coaches the ladies' swim team, and she's on that. Pretty good, the sergeant says."

Miles grimaced. "So, we have our lovely adolescent femme fatale and our newly divorced teacher, seeing her regularly in her swim things. It doesn't take much of a stretch, does it?"

"No, m'lord. Also, Lord Auditor Vorlaisner says he'll leave you to the scene. He'll prep the interrogation teams back at the Weathercrest."

"Ah. Good." Miles frowned at the com screen. "What do you think the odds are that we find Alys Léglise hiding with Georg Mitsotakis, Roic?"

"Not bad, m'lord," Roic replied cautiously. "But people're hard to predict."

"Too true," Miles agreed. He studied the screen for another few seconds, then planted his cane and heaved himself to his feet. "Well, let's get over there. We won't figure it out standing here."

They met up with Papadakis's outer perimeter men two blocks from the house, and were cautioned not to drive any closer. "We got twelve men on or around the property, m'Lord Auditor," said the young corporal who offered him a hand out of his groundcar. "And teams that're on all the roads in or out. We got orders to stop everyone what drives by and hold 'em until things are settled, to keep word from getting to 'em."

Miles nodded and worked his jaw, contemplating the dark road ahead. He thumped his cane once on the hard pavement, then sighed. "All right." He keyed Papadakis's wristcom through his own. "Major?"

"Lord Auditor Vorkosigan," came the crisp response.

"I'm here with Corporal…" He paused, inviting, and the young man caught his cue.

"Csurka."

"Csurka," Miles completed, "at the perimeter guardpoint. I will remain here. Your priority is the live apprehension of everyone in the house. Report to me when operations are complete. You are cleared to proceed."

"Yes, my lord," Papadakis replied. "Thank you."

The wristcom went quiet. Miles stood in the chilly night, trying not to fidget too noticeably in front of the corporal. There was no noise from inside the perimeter. Five minutes ticked agonizingly by. Ten. Miles suppressed the urge to com Papadakis again: What's taking so long? Do you have them? Fifteen minutes.

At the seventeen-minute mark, Miles's wristcom bleeped. "Major?" he replied instantly.

"Two down, stunned," Papadakis replied through the link. "One male, seems to be the homeowner, Georg Mitsotakis. The other female, late teens. We can have them back at the Weathercrest in fifteen minutes. Would you like to meet us there?"

Miles hesitated, torn. "Was there anything of interest at the house, Major? You'll send in a forensics team, of course, but was there anything that you think I would want to see?"

Papadakis paused a moment, for consideration or for caution. "No, my Lord Auditor," he said after a minute. "Nothing that I could see."

"All right," Miles said. "I'll meet you at the Weathercrest."

He didn't leave immediately, however, looking towards the critical building, masked by the intervening neighborhoods. He wanted to go over, to see the place… but his job was no longer that of field commander. _You deputize your team_, he told himself firmly, _and then you get out of their way._ Papadakis knew what he was doing. He did not need Lord Auditor Vorkosigan second-guessing and breathing down his neck. They returned to the hotel.

#

Miles arrived a few minutes ahead of Papadakis, and went to talk briefly to Vorlaisner. He updated his fellow Auditor on the course of events.

"I'm letting Vann and the Professor sleep for now," Vorlaisner told him. "If things heat up any further, we'll need them to spell us." He looked exhausted, Miles registered dimly, and recognized the throbbing of neglected sleep pushing at the edges of his own awareness. He shoved it back down. It would keep for several more hours, he knew from experience.

"I think I want to know what Mitsotakis has to say before we approach Léglise," Miles said, turning over the situation. "Do you have a preference?"

"I'll defer to you on this one, I think, Miles. Do you want to conduct it yourself?"

"Not this one," Miles answered. "We'll see what he has to say before talking to Léglise. Is the Auxiliary team awake and prepped? I will certainly want them present."

"Yes," Vorlaisner said simply. The Barrayaran Imperial Service Women's Auxiliary was often called in for cases such as this, with women to be interrogated or given medical attention. Given Léglise's age, Miles wanted to be particularly sure they observed all the niceties.

A call from the front door alerted them that Mitsotakis and Léglise were present. Miles instructed that they be brought to separate rooms.

Mitsotakis was still unconscious when they bound him to the chair in much the same position as poor Cyrus Babcock. Miles, operating more on paranoia than prudence, instructed that he be given his test patch before his synergine this time, but no allergic reaction resulted from the application of the little patch. At Miles's nod, the medtech pressed the hypo of synergine against the man's neck.

Mitsotakis groaned and retched, coming up from the stun. Miles, Vorlaisner, Captain Lambert, and the medtech all waited impassively. As Mitsotakis came to a groggy awareness of his situation, his groan of pain morphed into a moan of despair. "Georg Mitsotakis," Lambert began dispassionately. "We require a frank interview of you. You may, if you choose, make a voluntary confession before the administration of the fast-penta."

Mitsotakis hesitated, wetted his lips, and glanced at Miles and Vorlaisner, waiting in stony silence. He swallowed. "I –" He broke off, tried again. "I did it. Yes. For Alys." He stopped, as if thinking this sufficient. Three sets of eyes watched him, impassive and heavy with judgment. He shrank slightly. "She said – she said it was desperate. That he knew something. Or was going to know something. She was crying. She said people would die, people she loved. She said – said it was her fault. She was crying." He repeated this almost plaintively, as if in search of commiseration. He got none; he wilted again.

"She was crying," he said again. "She said – said it would be all right. We'd slip away together, afterwards. I waited, that night, but… she didn't come. And then the fences were up. And then tonight, she came again. She needed me to hide her. She kissed me. She – it wasn't anything indecent," he said hastily, as if – as if any of it mattered. It didn't, Miles knew. There was no point to any of this.

"He doesn't know the reasons," he said. "Or if he does, he won't tell us like this. Give him the fast-penta and get this over with. We need to talk to Léglise."

Mitsotakis strained against his bonds here for the first time. "She didn't do anything!" he said, almost desperately. "I did it. She didn't ask me to! It was me!" The hypospray pressed against his arm, and Miles turned away, not watching the drug enter his system, settle into his mind. He watched the blank wall, instead. On the other side of it, Alys Léglise was still unconscious.


	11. Chapter 11

Léglise had awakened on her own before they arrived just over a half hour later. She was sitting under the steady gazes of two women of the Auxiliary, crying steadily. Something about her tears rang artificial to Miles. He had seen many, many tears in his time, and shed what felt like more, and he had never seen such clean, lovely weeping, tears rolling in single tracks down each cheek. She made no sound. Her nose didn't run. She just wept, the tears streaking her face like a stigmata.

She was beautiful: it was undeniable. Slight and delicate, she had the kind of bone structure that makes men think of birds or angels. Her blond hair was sleek and fine. Her eyes were slightly too large, giving her the vulnerability of a child. She turned those eyes, wide and liquid, on Miles and Vorlaisner as they came into the room. Miles had a hard time envisioning this child as a criminal mastermind.

"Medtech," he greeted the nearer woman. He crossed to sit in front of Léglise, exiling the primary interrogator. "Has she had synergine?"

"My lord," Léglise interrupted, her voice quiet and urgent, "please, no one will tell me what this is about! I'm frightened. Have I done something wrong? Why am I here? Please, my lord."

Miles held his hand out in a stilling gesture, gently stopping her words. She stared at him. Miles looked again at the medtech. "Yes, my lord," the woman answered as if Léglise had not spoken. "She's had synergine, and her test is clear." She took Léglise's wrist in one hand and half-turned it in the restraint to reveal the test patch. Léglise flinched noticeably at her touch.

"Administer the fast-penta," Miles said. The medtech nodded, then lifted the hypo and pressed it to Léglise's arm. The girl stared at it as if it were some poisonous insect, settling to bite, then turned her frightened attention back to Miles.

"Please, my lord!" she begged. "I haven't done anything. I want my da! I – I want –" She broke off slowly, blinking her eyes hard against the drug.

"Count backwards with me," Miles coaxed gently. "Ten… nine…"

Mitsotakis had nothing more to offer under fast-penta than he had without it. Alys Léglise was pure, beautiful, and true. He had to defend her. She was innocent. Fast-penta guarded against falsehood, but not self-deception, not when it was so deeply rooted in the core of a man's heart. Miles counted for Alys Léglise, who was no participant yet in her own interrogation, watching the fast-penta creep through her veins and her mind.

"…one," he finished. She stared at him, her lips apart, her eyes wide and luminous. She was swaying very slightly in her chair, and Miles was eerily put in mind of snake charmers. She barely blinked.

The most important component of a successful fast-penta investigation is establishing a rapport with the subject. Miles smiled at Léglise and made his voice warm. "What a lovely girl," he began. "What is your name?"

"Alys." Her voice was thick, as if she were speaking out of syrup, but she smiled, a radiant expression.

"Hello, Alys. Do you know who I am?"

"Oh, _yes_," she said, stressing the word too hard. "I know who _you_ are. You're Lord Vorkosigan. You'll be a count one day."

"That's right," Miles said. "I know Georg Mitsotakis. Do you know him, too?"

"Oh, _Georg_," she said scornfully. "Georg is an idiot." Miles could only agree.

"Oh?" he asked. "How so?"

"He's just… useless," Alys said. "It only works because he knows how pathetic he is, you know. Men are like that." She smiled at him indulgently.

"It only works?" Miles repeated. "What only works?"

"Oh, all of it," Alys said airily. "The games and the playing. They like to think they mean something, that somehow they deserve someone like me." Even bound as she was, she tossed her head, and her hair rippled. Her chin set proudly. "They'd do anything for me." This was stated with an air of absolute conviction.

"And what did Georg Mitsotakis do for you?" Miles asked.

"Oh, he killed Lord Auditor Vorhovis," she replied brightly.

The medtech turned to stare at Miles with wide eyes, and he could hear the interrogator shifting behind him. He did not look at either of them, focused entirely on Alys Léglise. Vorlaisner remained completely silent and still. "Did you ask Georg Mitsotakis to kill Lord Auditor Vorhovis?"

"Oh, no!" she said, looking startled. "If you have to ask them, it spoils it."

"Did you want Georg Mitsotakis to kill Lord Auditor Vorhovis?"

"Oh, yes."

"Did Georg Mitsotakis know that you wanted him to kill Lord Auditor Vorhovis?"

"Of course! Why else would he have done it?"

Miles exhaled slowly through his nose, concealing the act as much as possible.

"Why did you want Georg Mitsotakis to kill Lord Auditor Vorhovis?"

"He was going to kill my da," Alys explained reasonably.

Miles paused for a second, absorbing this. "Why was Lord Auditor Vorhovis going to kill your father?"

"Because Da killed Vlad," she said. "Vlad was being real mean to me, and I told him it was over, and for real this time, and he said he'd tell everyone I'd slept around. So I told Da, and Da killed him."

Miles's head spun. "Vlad… Vlad Orlov?" he checked. "The one who drowned?" Cyrus had mentioned Vlad Orlov, the son of a local attorney, who had would up drunk and drowned just before heading off to college.

Alys nodded. "He was supposed to take care of me," she said earnestly. "But he didn't want to. Daddy did, though. I told him all about it, and he killed Vlad for me."

Miles let her speak while he absorbed this new fact. "So… you asked your father to kill Vlad Orlov?"

"Of course not!" she said, impatient. "I would never ask anyone to do a thing like that! I just told him about Vlad. It was his idea!"

"Did you want your father to kill Vlad Orlov?"

"Oh, I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "I suppose I must have. I was so grateful afterwards. He was so boring, and so mean. And ugly. But Daddy made it all better."

"Did your father tell you he was going to kill Vlad Orlov?"

"No!" she replied, sounding horrified. "Daddy would never talk about something like that with me. He just told me he was going to deal with it. And he did!"

Miles nodded, then glanced over at Vorlaisner. "Do you know who her father is, regarding the investigation?"

"Fyodor Léglise. We have him in custody here," Vorlaisner answered. "I questioned him last night, after her name came up. Nothing at all came up in the interview."

"It sounds like a second run might be productive."

"Indeed." The two men both looked again at Alys Léglise, who was wandering down her free-association path.

"…wouldn't stop talking about it. He was so horrified, he'd done such a horrible thing. It was disgusting. He was supposed to be a grown man, and he was going on like such a baby about it. He was so scared about that gun, I had to get him the explosives. And then he couldn't even do that right!"

"Stop," Miles said. She obediently fell silent. "You had to get who the explosives?" he checked.

"Oh, Georg," she said sunnily.

"Did you tell Georg Mitsotakis to destroy the Travelogue Hotel?"

"No!" She looked startled. "Someone might get hurt. I would never tell him to do that. That would be wrong!"

"Did you want Georg Mitsotakis to destroy the Travelogue Hotel?"

"Of course!" She seemed puzzled.

"Did Georg Mitsotakis know you wanted him to destroy the Travelogue Hotel?"

"Yes."

And on, and on. Even under the fast-penta, Alys Léglise was convinced she had done nothing wrong. She had sat in a web of men who were willing to kill for her, pulling strings and pushing them in all directions, never actually instructing, just hinting, wheedling, suggesting ideas. Alys Léglise had built killers out of ordinary men, while maintaining plausible deniability from even herself. "But I haven't done anything wrong!"

Lord Auditor Vorhovis had come to talk to her father about Vlad Orlov. She had seen them talking, and known he had discovered the murder. "If daddy was taken away, no one would want me," she explained earnestly. She had acted, then, without action. Webs inside webs. She had not expected the other heads of this hydra, racing in where one was cut down. She had expected time to regroup. She had been so very, very far out of her depth.

Finally, Miles shook his head. "Administer the antagonist," he said.

The medtech did so, and Miles watched as the haze seeped back out of Léglise's eyes. She blinked at Miles, coming back to herself. "My lord, I –"

Miles stopped her with a raised hand. "Alys Léglise," he told her formally, "I am placing you under arrest. You will be remanded to Vorbarr Sultana, there to answer for the crime of high treason."

Her mouth opened, an unguarded moment of shock. "But –" she stumbled over the word. "But I haven't done anything!"

Miles closed his mouth on arguments and rose, leaving her behind him for now. He went to summon ImpSec and call for Fyodor Léglise.

#

Fyodor Léglise proved to be… confusing. His daughter clearly inherited her looks from him, but what on a 17-year-old girl was lovely and ethereal made him small and meek, overly feminine for patriarchal Barrayar. His fast-penta testimony flatly contradicted Alys's story. He had known Vlad Orlov, of course; the boy had dated Alys for a year. He'd known his father professionally. Oleg Orlov was an attorney, and had been implicated in the financial side of this entire disaster. Damned shame; he'd seemed a good man.

Fyodor Léglise had never committed a crime more serious than padding an expense report. Fyodor Léglise had not, definitely not, murdered Vlad Orlov. He vaguely remembered that the kids had a fight. He'd intended to talk to Oleg. He would not kill anyone. Alys wouldn't kill anyone. He found the entire thing very, very funny while he was under fast-penta. It all lost its humor when the antagonist was administered.

By the time the interrogation was over, the sun was up, and Vorgustafson was awake. He waited outside the room for Miles and Vorlaisner to wrap up, and greeted them with a brusque, "What's happened?"

"We have it, I think," Miles said. "Let's get the professor awake, and we can all eat something while Alistair and I get you caught up."

It was instant groats again, in the restaurant downstairs. Vorthys and Vorgustafson looked tense and curious. Vorlaisner looked tired. Miles could only imagine how appalling he looked. Vorlaisner quickly detailed the sequence of events for their colleagues, and Vorthys and Vorgustafson looked appropriately appalled.

"There will be clean-up, of course," Miles said, "but I think the worst of the mess is unwound. Alys Léglise thought her father had killed for her. To protect her own financial and social security, she pulled in Mitsotakis and Babcock to warn off the investigation. In truth… she was never in any danger. It's a horrific scenario. One different decision, a half-dozen lives spared. At least." He grimaced.

"Ah," said Vann. "Yes. We will need to make recommendations as to charges and sentencing."

Vorthys blew out his breath. "It's an ugly business."

"Georg Mitsotakis will die for treason," Vorlaisner said, voice tense. "His was the hand. He knew what he was doing, whatever his reasons."

No one could dispute that. Miles rubbed his jaw. "I… suggested to Cyrus Babcock that I would spare him a traitor's death," he said. "I do not think he can escape the noose on this one, but… not for treason, not for him. Too stupid, not enough honesty… interfering with an Auditorial investigation, theft… I do not want to make it treason. For his name's sake."

Vorgustafson did not look happy about this, but Vorlaisner did. Vorlaisner, after all, had been there.

"Alys Léglise," Vorlaisner said.

There was a moment of silence.

"She's still a child," Vorthys said.

"She's seventeen," Miles replied. "At that age, I…" _…was also committing treason,_ the little honest voice at his core told him. All unwitting. "This isn't a petty crime, a 'she'll grow out of it.' Not this one."

Again, the silence.

"Death," Vorgustafson said, his voice flat.

"Treason," Vorlaisner said.

Miles didn't respond. Vorthys sighed.

After another long moment, Vorgustafson added, "Given her age… if we are going to make it a treason charge – by law, her father is implicated."

Miles blew out his breath. "He didn't know," he said. "We know for certain that he didn't know. He was a bad parent. Is that enough of a crime?"

"We punish people for being bad drivers if their driving kills someone else," Vorlaisner observed. "We punish people for being bad soldiers. She killed an Imperial Auditor in the middle of an active case."

Vorthys looked pained. "Does – are there other children?"

"One son," Miles answered. "He's twenty-three, and working in the mines."

Vorthys made a non-committal noise. To Vorthys, of course, twenty-three must seem far younger than it did to Miles. It seemed pretty damned young to Miles, these days. Vorgustafson shook his head, but not in dispute.

"We will need to at least send him back," Vorlaisner said.

"I will recommend his death," Vorgustafson said, probably with more confidence than he felt.

"I… cannot," said Vorthys. "There will be enough deaths."

"I don't think there will be, Professor," Vorlaisner said, the words sounding distant, as if coming from a source more distant than the man before them. "For this? Vorparadijs was right. They burned cities for this in the past. I'm tempted to suggest they string up the perpetrators of the initial financial mess, for not immediately confessing when this disaster struck. They tied up our manpower for hours."

Vorthys shook his head, looking grave, but did not respond.

"I… reluctantly agree, on Fyodor Léglise," Miles said. "He does bear legal liability. Letting that slide will be seen as mercy. And we… can have none. Not on this case."

"I agree," Vorlaisner said. "We will record the dissent, of course, Professor, and recommend that sentencing wait until we have all had time to write up our reports."

Vorthys's eyes went to Miles. "Miles, would you like to bear the preliminary report back to Vorbarr Sultana? Someone should accompany our prisoners back and speak with Gregor directly."

"I suppose so," Miles said. "You won't need me here?"

"Miles," Vorthys said gently, "it's a six-hour flight back to the capital. If you leave in the next hour or so, you can see your children before they go to bed. Wish them a happy birthday from me, eh?"

"Oh." It seemed impossible to Miles that all of this had been done in barely forty-eight hours, but Vorthys was right. "Right. Yes, I'll carry the preliminary report back. Is there anything specific any of you want me to relay?"

It took a little over an hour to prep the prisoners for transport. Miles stared out the window of the aircar on the trip home, trying not to think about anything.

#

Twenty-seven days later, Alys Léglise finally died in the stocks in the Great Square. Miles went by the square every one of the thirteen days it took her to die. He wondered, that last day, if he would ever know whether it was courage or cowardice that drove him there. It surely did not matter to anyone but himself.


End file.
